Meeting of the Parliament 03 December 2014
The national health service is without doubt the greatest social policy of any Government. The collective pooling of our taxes to provide healthcare for all, free at the point of need, was a revolution in healthcare, resulting in a system to which we contribute according to ability to pay and which each citizen of this country can use according to need. That is something that we should never take for granted and which all of us should work to protect.
Our NHS is under pressure like never before. From the front door of the general practice through to the social care sector, the pressures across the system are immense. In primary care in my region alone, 27 GP surgeries have full or restricted waiting lists. Workforce pressures are piling up. When a GP is off sick or retires, finding a replacement or a locum is almost impossible.
I recently met managers at two practices. Both of them told me that there were no applicants for their vacancies. Yet, rather than addressing those pressures, the Scottish Government has been cutting GP funding. The budget for general practice has been declining steadily. Next year, there is a further real-terms cut of 2.2 per cent. The Royal College of General Practitioners has raised concerns about the
“dangerous consequences for patients in the light of continued underfunding”.
Waiting times for appointments are up.