Hansard

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 not statistics, but real-life stories that tell me that our workforce is stretched to breaking point. Behind every delayed scan or missed appointment is a patient who has been left in pain or desperately worried, and a clinician who has been left exhausted. Let us call that what it is: a workforce crisis that has been created in Bute house and presided over by a revolving door of Scottish National Party health secretaries who have failed to plan, failed to lead and failed Scotland’s patients.

As a consequence of those failures, junior doctors are finishing years of training only to find that there are no jobs. GPs who are being trained here are forced to leave Scotland to work; the SNP is training doctors for Australia. Newly qualified nurses and paramedics are joining the ranks of the unemployed, all at a time when patients are struggling to get appointments. That is happening right now outside the chamber in the real world.

The Royal College of Radiologists has laid bare the scale of the crisis. Scotland faces a 25 per cent shortfall in radiologists and a 19 per cent shortfall in clinical oncologists, which is the highest figure in the UK. By 2029, those shortfalls are projected to grow to 35 per cent and 31 per cent respectively. What does that mean for everyone out there and for our patients? It means that there will be longer wait times for cancer diagnosis, delayed treatments and worsening outcomes. In some parts of Scotland, the gaps are even more severe, which will deepen regional inequality. That is truly scary. The Scottish Government needs to get a grip and stop trotting out the kind of platitudes that are in the SNP’s amendment.

The problem extends beyond cancer care. In cardiology, more than 6,000 patients have been waiting more than a year for an echocardiogram. That is a vital test for heart disease, but not according to the SNP. Shockingly, the Scottish Government does not consider that to be one of its key diagnostic tests. It is omitted from workforce planning, routine reporting and serious political attention. After 18 years in Government, the SNP still has not got its head around the basics.

The waiting list for that test is more than double the combined total for the eight key tests that the Government tracks. Clearly, patients with suspected heart disease are having to wait for that test. There is a lack of trained cardiac physiologists. The only degree programme in Scotland for that specialty is ending and no replacement is in place for 2025. That profession, which is crucial to saving lives, is being allowed to wither from neglect. That is the SNP in a nutshell.

I turn to GPs. What I witness there is not isolated strain but the visible symptom of a deeper workforce crisis that the SNP has long ignored. Poor planning, a lack of vision and political complacency have left our NHS hollowed out even as demand continues to soar. There is what has been announced and then there is reality. The SNP promised 800 more GPs by 2027 but, lo and behold, GP numbers instead fell from 4,514 in 2022 to 4,438 last year. The BMA and the Royal College of General Practitioners have warned that general practice is in danger of collapse. However, under the slick management of the SNP, we find ourselves in the absurd position in which doctors are underemployed yet demand is soaring.

It is time for change and leadership rather than slogans and excuses. Our NHS staff and patients deserve better.

I move amendment S6M-17869.1, to insert after “vacancies,”:

“acknowledges that Scotland is experiencing a paradox of underemployed GPs who remain unable to find sufficient work despite widespread demand, as well as unemployed paramedics graduating from universities and paediatric nurses unable to secure roles; highlights that the Scottish National Party administration promised to increase GP numbers by 800 by 2027, but that this target is unlikely to be met as GP numbers are declining and junior doctors are struggling to find jobs; acknowledges that the Royal College of Nursing has claimed that current nursing staffing levels are inadequate, noting that, while the number of nurses employed by NHS Scotland has increased, levels of staff absence and agency use remain unsustainably high; references the report, The Nursing Workforce in Scotland 2025, which shows demand outstripping supply, and calls for better data to enable sustainable workforce planning; recognises that the Royal College of General Practitioners has criticised the Scottish Government’s plan to provide 100,000 extra GP appointments, as Scotland’s NHS currently does not have the workforce capacity to deliver this plan;”.