Sarwar: NHS needs to recover from Swinney and the SNP

The NHS needs to recover from John Swinney and the SNP, the leader of Scottish Labour has said.

Anas Sarwar’s comments come after a report from Audit Scotland found that despite increased spending and more staff, the health service is still struggling to meet Government pledges to improve.

After a £3 billion real-terms increase in funding, achieving the First Minister’s pledge to eradicate long waits for treatment remains “extremely challenging”, the Auditor General said.

John Swinney was challenged on the issue at First Minister’s Questions on Thursday by Mr Sarwar, who described the report as a “damning indictment”.

“The NHS needs to recover from John Swinney and the SNP,” the Scottish Labour leader said.

“His predecessor promised to end waits of over a year by September 2024 – he failed.

“John Swinney has promised to end waits of over a year by March 2026, but right now more than 11,000 patients are waiting over two years.”

Responding, the First Minister said: “I accept that there are challenges in ensuring that the NHS recovers from the disruption of two years of the Covid pandemic.

“I accept that challenge exists, but there is also significant progress being made.”

He told MSPs the number of operations conducted in Scotland now exceeds pre-pandemic levels, adding: “What that demonstrates is that, while there are challenges, there is progress being made and the plans that I’ve put in place to focus on long waits are now beginning to have effect.”

But Mr Sarwar pointed to a record number of people seeking private healthcare between April and June this year, saying: “People in pain, forced to remortgage their homes and spend life savings to get the treatment they need.

“The founding principles of our NHS – free and available at the point of need – is being destroyed by the SNP.”

The First Minister said waits of over a year for treatment had reduced this year, adding his Government is “delivering on the progress that I said would be made”.

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton also challenged the First Minister on the NHS, raising the case of Isobel Knights, who waited in a hospital corridor for six hours after suffering a seizure and being driven to A&E by her husband Martyn.

The Lib Dem MSP said the number of people waiting more than 12 hours in A&E had increased “by 63,000%” since the SNP took power in 2007.

He said: “Doesn’t Isobel and Martyn’s experience show how mistakes can be made, patients can be put in danger, because accident and emergency is overwhelmed on the SNP’s watch?”

The First Minister said there would be a “range of different factors” as to why the A&E waiting times are so high.

“Some of it will be about whole-system challenges such as delayed discharge, where hospitals are so congested it’s difficult to ensure patients can be transferred from A&E into routine wards on a timely basis,” Mr Swinney said.

“The second issue is the caseload that presents at A&E, and in that respect we’ve taken forward work to put in place frailty units which enable us to support frail patients more actively and in a more supportive environment than the mainstream of A&E, where there can be some very acute and challenging factors.”

The ongoing surge in flu cases has also stretched emergency departments, the First Minister said, with Public Health Scotland figures released on Thursday showing cases have more than doubled in the most recent week on record, with a 70% increase in admissions to hospital for flu.