The head of the British Medical Association in Scotland is retiring early from the health service amid frustration with the daily pressures caused by bed and staffing shortages.
In a very public blow to ministerial claims that the problems in the Scottish health service are manageable, Peter Bennie said he would be leaving frontline medicine next month at the age of 55 partly because he is continually haunted by what he cannot achieve.
Dr Bennie, the outgoing chairman of the association in Scotland, which acts as the voice of doctors, said that many clinicians shared his concerns.
He said: “My own experience, when I am finishing a clinical day, is running over in my head the things I have not been able to do because