One of Scotland’s most senior doctors has issued a stark warning about the “lack of any slack” in the health service ahead of the busy winter season.

Dr Lewis Morrison, chair of the British Medical Association Scotland, also said there is an “industry” around measuring delayed patient discharges figures instead of “doing something about this”.

The East Lothian doctor said patients being kept in hospital longer than is medically necessary can reach “epidemic proportions” by the start of January.

In a blog post, Dr Morrison said long emergency department waits were becoming “increasingly common” and the number of patients spending more than eight hours in a waiting room had hit record levels over the last two winters.

Dr Morrison goes on to say the practice of cancelling elective operations to clear space for patients coming through emergency departments “emphasises the utter lack of any slack” in the NHS:

“This is bad for patients and it’s not good for us. While we need to be mature and reasonable in our approach to targets, and question them when we think they may not be quite right, the failure to meet them does indicate pressure across the system.

“If you like analogies, then they are a warning light on a car dashboard that things are going badly wrong and breakdown is imminent. Except in the NHS it never feels like you get the chance to stop to fix things.”

BMA Scotland is calling for the health service to do more to “look after those who work in it”.

The union is surveying members to find out about their priorities on issues from pensions to bullying.