Meeting of the Parliament 29 January 2025
I will not.
I genuinely worry about what John Swinney will do next.
Instead of taking any responsibility, the SNP hides behind the staff and repels every criticism as, somehow, the Opposition talking down the staff and suggesting that they are incapable. For the record, I note that it is not NHS staff or social care staff that are incapable—it is this SNP Government. I will give the Parliament a few examples. The Scottish Government spends around £60,000 for each student nurse to train at a Scottish university, when we take into account study and bursary costs. That is money well spent for such an important role. However, last year, almost 100 graduate paediatric and adult nurses were told that there were no jobs for them, despite staff shortages. Budget cuts meant vacancy freezes. In fact, last year, the SNP quietly cut 1,500 nursing and midwifery jobs from the establishment records before any budget cuts had even begun. Posts were simply wiped out overnight.
Since then, I have been contacted by paramedic graduates who have experienced the same problem, and by junior doctors who have been told that they will need to undertake their speciality training in Northern Ireland as there is nothing happening in Scotland. I have heard from graduate pharmacists, such as Abbie, who have been told that, due to a lack of funding, there will be no foundational training year for them in Scotland and that they will have to go to England if they want to continue. The Scottish Government is paying to train health and care staff for the benefit of every NHS in the UK except NHS Scotland. If that is not incompetence, I do not know what is.
The current pressures in our hospitals are due in part to this Government’s failure to fix the problems in social care. More than 9,000 Scots are waiting on care assessments or packages. We know that there is a chronic shortage of support because we do not have the staff, but we do not have the staff because they are not treated with the respect that they deserve so they head for the exit door. Is it any wonder that many of them are going to work in retail, where they are often paid more and have less stress? Year after year, Labour has consistently argued for a minimum of £15 an hour with finance ministers Kate Forbes and John Swinney, who are both deaf to the plight of social care staff. What happened to the missing £50 million for fair work to improve terms and conditions for social care staff? It was cancelled by ministers at the 11th hour. That tells us all that we need to know about how much the SNP values social care.
Scotland cannot keep paying the price for the SNP’s financial mismanagement and waste. Its recklessness is a betrayal of the NHS and social care staff who have gone above and beyond to keep services going and patients safe. After nearly 18 years of failure and decline from the SNP, it is time to change the team. Scottish Labour will ensure that our NHS and social care sectors have a 10-year workforce plan that creates enough medical and nursing training places; values nurses, doctors and all NHS staff; and meets the needs of future generations?of patients. We will deliver faster access to GPs and tackle long waits for treatment once and for all by taking full advantage of our untapped potential.
Scottish Labour is and has always been the party that is willing to stand up for workers, protect our NHS and invest in social care. Scotland’s NHS needs a new direction and Scottish Labour is ready to deliver it.
I move,
That the Parliament deeply regrets that there is a continuing crisis in both the NHS and social care; recognises that staff are the backbone of the NHS and that the Scottish Government has failed to effectively workforce plan; understands that the consequences of this failure are that patients are suffering from poorer outcomes, hard-working staff are experiencing moral injury, and NHS graduates are not being employed, and calls on the Scottish Government to urgently bring forward a 10-year health and social care workforce plan that meets the needs of the people of Scotland.