Meeting of the Parliament 02 March 2017
I thank Bruce Crawford for that intervention. Perhaps as convener of the Finance and Constitution Committee, he should have read Labour’s budget amendment, which talked about using the Parliament’s tax powers to invest more in our NHS and stop the cuts to local government, which would stop the cuts to social care that also impact directly on the NHS.
I gently say to members on the Scottish National Party benches that they can repeat a line as often as they like, but that does not make it true. The reality is that cuts are happening across health boards under this Government.
We have also seen a complete failure in workforce planning, with vacancies right across the NHS. There are more than 2,500 nursing and midwifery vacancies, including vacancies for mental health nurses. Only a third of NHS Scotland staff feel that there are enough of them to do their jobs properly, and nine out of 10 nurses say that their workload is getting worse. How is that going to improve patient safety?
In primary care, one in four of Scotland’s GP practices reports a vacancy, asking staff to do more while they oversee the worst workforce crisis since devolution. That led the chair of the BMA to warn that the situation would lead to “personal breakdown” and then “system breakdown”. How is that going to improve patient safety?
There are cuts to local services across the country, with maternity wards, a paediatric ward and neonatal intensive care units under threat. How is that going to improve patient safety?