Meeting of the Parliament 02 November 2016
I welcome the cabinet secretary to the chamber. It is nice to see her twice in one day, with nobody to hide behind.
Last week, Audit Scotland published its annual state of the NHS report. It is the worst report on the NHS since devolution—a damning indictment of 10 years of SNP mismanagement of our NHS that lays bare the failings of the cabinet secretary and her Government. No amount of Government spin or warm words from the cabinet secretary can hide the fact that Audit Scotland—an authoritative, expert and, crucially, independent body—has painted a picture of an NHS in crisis. Only one out of eight patient standards has been met. That is not just a statistic—behind it are thousands of patients and families who have been let down.
However, this is not just one bad report. It identifies a trend under this Government and this cabinet secretary. In 2013, only four out of eight standards were met; in 2014, only three out of eight standards were met; in 2015, only two out of eight standards were met; and now, in 2016, only one standard in eight has been met. What will it take before the cabinet secretary recognises that the NHS is in crisis? Does the level of standards that are met have to hit zero before there is any admission of the failures of this Government?
At its heart, the report reveals one key failing: workforce planning. It reveals a Government that is letting down our hardworking and dedicated staff—the doctors, nurses, midwives, healthcare assistants, porters, physiotherapists, radiographers and many more. There are too few staff working too many hours and dealing with too many patients, but without the support or resources that they say they need to do the job properly.
I have heard members of the Government party say that exposing the failures of the Government on the NHS somehow lets down our hardworking staff. However, we should be in no doubt that betrayal of our staff comes not from those who are exposing the Government’s failures but from those who wilfully underresource, undervalue and overwork them.
I use this moment to thank all our staff who have dedicated their lives to caring for others and to say, “It’s you and your patients we are fighting for today.”
We have heard from nursing leaders that their workforce is reporting inability to cope with their workload and that the situation is only getting worse. It is unacceptable that we now have more than 2,500 nursing and midwifery vacancies. As a direct consequence of that, we have seen spending on private nursing agencies skyrocket.
The Audit Scotland report found that the cost to the NHS of a whole-time equivalent private nurse is in excess of £80,000 a year, but an NHS nurse costs only £32,000. Locum consultants earn as much as £400,000 per annum, which is enough to pay for four NHS consultants. At the same time as the Government is cutting budgets, £173 million is being spent on private agencies.
On budgets, the independent Auditor General confirms what Labour has been saying for months: this year there will be almost £500 million of cuts, on top of £300 million last year. Those cuts are having a direct impact on staff, on patients and on services. They are deliberate, conscious and calculated decisions to force cuts on health board after health board. Those decisions have consequences. The health secretary let the cat out of the bag when she said on “Good Morning Scotland”, on the morning of the publication of the Audit Scotland report, that Labour should stop—I quote—
“putting blocks in the way to any changes to services in Parliament.”
The services changes we are trying to stop—closures at the Vale of Leven hospital, the Royal Alexandra hospital, Inverclyde royal hospital and Lightburn hospital—are to services that we were promised were all safe by the cabinet secretary.
There is an alternative. We could use the powers of the Parliament to invest in social care and to invest in front-line services. To conclude, as the Royal College of Nursing said:
“How many more reports will be published by Audit Scotland before action is taken? Patients, staff and families deserve a decisive response from the health secretary.”
Well, cabinet secretary—what is it to be?
I move amendment S5M-02232.1, after “unprecedented levels of savings”, to insert:
“, which will mean cuts to local services; notes the vote in the Parliament on 28 September 2016 on motion S5M-01677 and reiterates its call for the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport to call-in service changes for ministerial decision; notes”.
Motions, questions or amendments mentioned by their reference code.