Chamber
Meeting of the Parliament 11 June 2025
11 Jun 2025 · S6 · Meeting of the Parliament
Item of business
Medical and Nursing Workforce
Everyone in Scotland, including everyone in the chamber, recognises the challenges that our NHS is facing. Of course, we are fortunate to still have a fully public NHS in Scotland. Scotland has taken a very different approach to NHS reform compared with England, especially since devolution. While NHS England underwent market-oriented reforms, starting with Tony Blair in the 1990s and then with the Conservative Health and Social Care Act 2012, Scotland focused on integration and collaboration, and not on competition.
Maintaining a fully public NHS while Scotland’s purse strings are held by a Government in London that prefers a market and profit-driven model is the subject of one of the many frustrations that I have with the devolution settlement. There is a limit to what Scotland can do, given where we sit in this unequal union.
In the same item of business
The Deputy Presiding Officer (Annabelle Ewing)
SNP
The next item of business is a debate on motion S6M-17869, in the name of Jackie Baillie, on addressing Scotland’s medical and nursing workforce crisis. I in...
Jackie Baillie (Dumbarton) (Lab)
Lab
Our national health service is on its knees. There are thousands of vacancies for doctors and nurses, and yet we are turning them away as posts lie unfilled ...
The Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care (Neil Gray)
SNP
Will the member take an intervention?
Jackie Baillie
Lab
No—I think that you should listen. It costs £300,000 to train a single doctor to the point at which they can land a specialty training place, and we are als...
The Deputy Presiding Officer
SNP
I call the cabinet secretary, Neil Gray, to speak to and move amendment S6M-17869.2. 15:00
The Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care (Neil Gray)
SNP
In this chamber, I have always been candid about the challenges that our NHS faces, and today will be no different. Once again, I put on record my deep appr...
Sandesh Gulhane (Glasgow) (Con)
Con
How many newly qualified paediatric nurses have found vacancies that enable them to take up a job?
Neil Gray
SNP
I am aware that a limited number, on a geographical basis, have found that a struggle, but, as I have just said, a wide range of vacancies are available for ...
Brian Whittle (South Scotland) (Con)
Con
Will the cabinet secretary give way?
Neil Gray
SNP
Would I be able to get the time back, Presiding Officer?
The Deputy Presiding Officer
SNP
There is very limited time.
Neil Gray
SNP
I give way briefly.
Brian Whittle
Con
I appreciate the cabinet secretary giving way, because I have a genuine question. When my daughter qualified as a midwife, there were 10 times as many applic...
Neil Gray
SNP
I recognise that there are areas in our health service that are particularly attractive, such as paramedicine, midwifery and paediatric nursing. We want to e...
The Deputy Presiding Officer
SNP
Cabinet secretary, I have been generous with your time, but you need to conclude.
Neil Gray
SNP
A vast amount of work is under way, both from a workforce perspective and from a reform and renewal perspective. The population health framework and the heal...
Sandesh Gulhane (Glasgow) (Con)
Con
I declare an interest as a practising NHS general practitioner and a former chair of the BMA GP trainees committee. In my experience in my GP surgery, I see...
Lorna Slater (Lothian) (Green)
Green
Everyone in Scotland, including everyone in the chamber, recognises the challenges that our NHS is facing. Of course, we are fortunate to still have a fully ...
Pam Duncan-Glancy (Glasgow) (Lab)
Lab
Will the member acknowledge that hundreds of her constituents are going private because they cannot get appointments on the NHS in Scotland?
Lorna Slater
Green
I do not disagree that there is a crisis in NHS Scotland. I will come to that, but the member will also acknowledge that many of the problems that we face in...
Alex Cole-Hamilton (Edinburgh Western) (LD)
LD
I am pleased to speak in the debate, although I am tired of saying that there is an NHS workforce crisis, as we do so repeatedly. It is a crisis, and that fa...
Neil Gray
SNP
Will Alex Cole-Hamilton take an intervention?
Alex Cole-Hamilton
LD
I am afraid that I must make progress. The NHS does not need more pilot schemes. It needs action and genuine change. It needs conversations—difficult conver...
The Deputy Presiding Officer (Liam McArthur)
LD
We move to the open debate. 15:20
Carol Mochan (South Scotland) (Lab)
Lab
I am pleased to speak on an issue that concerns the very backbone of our NHS: its workforce. I begin by echoing other members’ points about the value of our ...
Neil Gray
SNP
Will the member give way?
The Deputy Presiding Officer
LD
The member is concluding her speech.
Carol Mochan
Lab
I am closing—I apologise. I hope that members will support Labour’s motion, which recognises the on-going workforce crisis and calls on the Government to un...
Christine Grahame (Midlothian South, Tweeddale and Lauderdale) (SNP)
SNP
First, I do not accept that the NHS in Scotland is in crisis. It avoided being in crisis even at the height of the Covid pandemic, which was due, in the main...
Monica Lennon (Central Scotland) (Lab)
Lab
In securing the debate, Scottish Labour is confronting the crisis that is gripping the NHS in Scotland. That crisis is not simply measured in statistics; it ...