Meeting of the Parliament 22 April 2025
I, too, thank Douglas Lumsden for securing time for this important debate on NHS Grampian.
Healthcare in the north-east is in crisis as a result of years of chronic underfunding of NHS Grampian by the SNP Government. The health board is financially crippled. The situation is so desperate that it has had to take out a £67.5 million loan from the Scottish Government, bringing the total debt that it owes to £92.2 million. There are huge questions about how that debt will be serviced, given that the health board is already trying to make eye-watering savings. It is almost impossible—how can it pay a debt when it cannot make ends meet?
The reality is that NHS Grampian has been short-changed by more than £260 million—a quarter of a billion pounds—since the SNP got into power. The SNP Government’s parity formula is not worth the paper that it is written on.
That underfunding has resulted in the erosion of community hospitals, closed in-patient facilities and the end of night-time minor injuries units. It also means that NHS Grampian has the lowest bed base in Scotland.
All that has created substantial pressures on hospitals, GPs and the Scottish Ambulance Service, with crews queuing for hours just to get in the door of Aberdeen royal infirmary—a symptom of a system that is stretched beyond its limits.
That is why a critical incident was declared at ARI last November, when patients were diverted from the hospital because the capacity simply was not there. On that day, a dedicated ambulance crew saved the lives of a couple. The crew decided that, if they went to NHS Grampian, the couple probably would not have had their lives saved. The ambulance was diverted—it was blue-lighted all the way through to Dundee and NHS Tayside, double or triple the distance.
Upwards of 3,000 patients in the NHS Grampian area have been languishing on waiting lists for more than two years. The health board’s cancer waiting times are the worst in Scotland, with more than 40 per cent of patients waiting longer than two months to receive their first treatment after being referred. That means lives not just put on hold but put at risk, because we know the pivotal importance of early intervention. It is a ticking time bomb.
Despite the brilliant efforts of NHS staff, NHS Grampian received red ratings for nearly two thirds of its key targets between October and December 2024.
I rarely agree with Kevin Stewart, but, as my colleagues have said, he was spot on when he rightly pointed out that the national treatment centre for Grampian is on ice. The Baird family hospital and the ANCHOR projects have been beset by problems, delays and design issues. What is the SNP Government’s response? To carry out a patchwork of short-term fixes and make empty promises. It is no wonder that Audit Scotland has highlighted the lack of a strategic vision, and that NHS workers are sounding the alarm.
The SNP has failed the north-east. It has failed our NHS. Today, Neil Gray must apologise for the harsh financial conditions that his Government have created for NHS Grampian. My constituents, and the constituents of other MSPs who are speaking on their behalf, deserve better than this.
18:37