Swinney: Government will ‘take its time’ on delayed National Care Service plans

John Swinney has insisted the Scottish Government will “take its time” on plans for a National Care Service, amid reports the flagship proposal has been dropped.

The First Minister was challenged on the issue after ministers sought to further push back the legislation behind the service.

In a letter to Holyrood’s Health Committee sent on Wednesday evening, social care minister Maree Todd confirmed stage two of the Bill will no longer start on November 26, as had previously been planned.

Instead, Ms Todd said a new timetable for the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill will be agreed in the new year.

It came after both unions working in the care sector and local government body Cosla withdrew their support for the Bill – which is also opposed by all opposition parties at Holyrood, leaving the minority SNP administration struggling to get the support needed to pass the legislation.

Pressed on the issue at First Minister’s Questions on Thursday, Mr Swinney accepted “there is a lot of opposition to the National Care Service from a variety of institutional stakeholders”.

The SNP leader also said he recognises the “issues within Parliament”, and said the Government will now “take its time to ensure that we get proposals right”.

Opposition leaders have branded the current proposals a “failed plan”, with Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay saying he is “very glad” the Government has “listened to some common-sense for a change”, amid reports the service is being scrapped.

Mr Swinney however appeared to dismiss that suggestion, as he insisted: “The Government will take its time to ensure that we get proposals right and bring forward proposals that can command parliamentary support.

“I have made it very clear that my Government is a listening government.

“We are listening to the views of members of the public, we are listening to the fact that people from disabled people’s organisations, carers, service users, are urging us to implement a National Care Service because they are dissatisfied, as I am, with the variation in care around the country, the postcode lottery.”

Introduced in the wake of the Covid pandemic, then first minister Nicola Sturgeon said a National Care Service would be the “most significant” public service reform since the creation of the NHS.

On Thursday, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said by delaying the legislation, Ms Todd had “formally slammed the brakes on the SNP’s botched National Care Service plans”.

He said the Government has so far spent about £30 million on the plans, claiming that money “could have funded one million hours of care at home” at a time when “many Scots are in urgent need of support”.

Hitting out at the Government for “years of chaos, delay, incompetence and waste”, the Labour leader challenged Mr Swinney to “finally ditch this discredited plan”.

The First Minister however said that disabled people’s organisations, carers and those who use care services have “pressed the Government to take forward the National Care Service” – saying that when the Scottish Cabinet met in Ayr least week members of the public had been “pleading” for the change.

Mr Swinney added: “That is why the Government is taking time to engage substantively on the issue of the National Care Service, to put in place the arrangements that will tackle the issues which I think Mr Sarwar and I agree upon, which is the unacceptable variation of care in different parts of the country and the postcode lottery that exists in the treatment and support of vulnerable people in our society.”