Hansard

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 also training nurses at a cost of £60,000. We are throwing that down the drain—what a waste, not just of taxpayers’ money, but of those people’s futures.

Today, the British Medical Association Scotland published a survey of its resident doctors that shows that a staggering 70 per cent of them have concerns about their employment—all that while the vacancy rate for consultants is at 14.4 per cent. To put that into context, that is 1,000 vacant consultant posts, which is enough to fill two large hospitals.

These are the voices of resident doctors who have trained for years, but, in today’s Scotland, are not able to get jobs:

“It feels like a complete dead end … completely soul crushing after seven years of dedication”.

“I do not know if I will be able to pay my rent come August and, if I am unable to secure enough work, I will have to move back in with my parents”.

“It is literally giving me sleepless nights.”

Some are considering moving to England or, indeed, abroad. Others are forced to choose between their family life and a job on the other side of the country, and others still are considering a new career. That is the reality of being a resident doctor in the Scottish National Party’s Scotland. For the individuals concerned, it must be a crushing blow to realise that the stable career that they chose is anything but.

However, the SNP’s failure to come up with a proper workforce plan is also a betrayal of all of us. As Susan, a resident doctor in Hamilton, asked,

“Why are we spending money increasing university places for medical students, when there are not enough jobs, or training posts, to continue their career in Scotland?”

The Scots who cannot get an appointment should rightly be outraged at the idea that they cannot see a doctor when, somewhere nearby, an unemployed qualified doctor is sitting on their hands. Douglas, a resident doctor, said:

“I would love to be an anaesthetist, I would love to help bring down waiting lists but I can’t.”

The SNP Government will say all the right things about how important NHS staff are—and they are—but its actions betray it. I have today been sent information that shows that the SNP has cut the number of specialty training places for resident doctors in core surgical training, general surgery, neurosurgery, ear, nose and throat, urology, obstetrics and paediatrics.

It is not just doctors whose places are being cut. Last year, the Royal College of Nursing Scotland warned that newly qualified nurses could not find jobs, despite more than 2,600 whole-time-equivalent nursing and midwifery vacancies being unfilled. Hundreds of nurses graduated without jobs to go to. One mother, whose daughter is about to graduate this year as a paediatric nurse, contacted me to say that she and her fellow graduates could not find jobs in Scotland, despite working on short-staffed wards during their training. Her daughter is now preparing to move to Leicester.

All that must be mind boggling to the patients who are queuing at accident and emergency or just waiting for a test, diagnosis or treatment. It is no wonder that more and more people with means are going private because they can no longer cope with waiting in pain.

The SNP Government says that it wants to fix our NHS, but do you know something? After 18 years, if it had any idea of how to do so, we would have seen it by now. We all know that our NHS is nothing without its staff, but, instead of using them as a human shield, as this Government does, the SNP must get its head out of the sand and take action, because every month that the SNP drags its feet is another month when unemployed resident doctors do not know where to find the money for rent. It is another month for Australian headhunters to recruit them and another month that patients have to continue to wait for treatment.

That is why the Scottish Government has to act now—not next year, but right now. It needs to provide jobs for those resident doctors this August or risk losing them from the NHS completely. The Scottish Government needs to expedite its future medical workforce project and report back to Parliament by 1 September. It must also undertake a wider review of workforce planning, with independent modelling and projections, to report back by 1 December, because there is an urgent need for a proper workforce plan. Those would be important first steps towards that and, frankly, we cannot afford to wait any longer.

I will finish with another quote from a doctor who was surveyed by BMA Scotland. They said:

“My colleagues and patients love me, the feedback I get is great, but the system simply doesn’t care. I am betrayed by the career and country I loved, and the worst part is: I know I’m not alone.”

This is Parliament’s chance to speak up for the young, talented, hard-working people who have spent years training to work in our NHS as doctors, nurses and allied health professionals. They cannot get a job, and that is the fault of this Government and nobody else. This is the time for ministers to commit to changing the system, so that qualified doctors and nurses can do the jobs for which they trained.

I move,

That the Parliament recognises the scale of the crisis in Scotland’s NHS, with almost one in six people in Scotland on NHS waiting lists for tests or treatment, and private hospital admissions in Scotland reaching record levels in 2024, all while patients struggle to access a GP appointment; is concerned, therefore, regarding reports that resident doctors are unable to secure speciality training places in Scotland’s NHS, while newly qualified nurses cannot get jobs despite over 2,600 unfilled whole-time equivalent nursing and midwifery vacancies; regrets that inadequate NHS workforce planning by the Scottish National Party administration is forcing highly skilled clinicians to seek employment elsewhere, and calls on the Scottish Government to expedite its reported Future Medical Workforce project, and to report back to the Parliament by 1 September 2025, and undertake a wider review of workforce planning, with independent modelling and projections, and to report back by 1 December 2025, so that there is the required level of workforce to staff Scotland’s NHS.