By Dame Jackie Baillie MSP

It is wonderful to be here with you on the banks of the Clyde. Near to the home of our newest MP, Michael Shanks after his stunning by-election victory in Rutherglen & Hamilton West.  Let’s send many more Scottish Labour MPs to join Michael and Ian Murray. 

The stakes could not be higher. This year will go down in history as a watershed moment in our politics and in the story of our country.  This is the year when we have the chance to turn our backs on the politics of division and despair.

We can turn the page on the politics of decline, on the politics of sleaze and on the politics of chaos.

This is the legacy of 17 years of the SNP and 14 years of the Tories. This is not as good as it gets.

Change can come – and believe me conference – change is coming with a Labour government led by Keir Starmer.  But it’s not enough to just talk about change.

We need to lay out why we need change and what the change is that Labour will deliver.

As we gather here today, all of Scotland’s public services are in disarray.  The economy is stagnating, and people are crying out for help as bills soar and prices bite.  Labour’s greatest achievement is the NHS, and its very existence is now at risk.

Let me break with tradition and welcome the new health secretary Neil Gray.

“Hardworking” “unassuming” “dedicated”.  No, no, I am not talking about Mr. Gray,  This is how his predecessor Michael Matheson was described before he racked up roaming charges.

Mr Gray has a hard task ahead as he tries to get to grips with 17 years of SNP failure … I just hope he puts medical issues ahead of Moroccan escapades.

He cannot afford to be distracted because the failure is clear for all to see.

• One in six Scots are stuck on a waiting list. Many having to raid the family savings to go private.

• A&E departments are overwhelmed. Last year, a shocking 7,300 Scots waited more than a day in A&E.

• Cancer remains Scotland’s biggest killer and yet lifesaving treatment targets are being missed.

• Primary care is on its knees. GPs have been let down and patients are suffering the consequences of under-investment.

• Heath inequalities are widening with death rates almost twice as high in the poorest areas.

• And shockingly, life expectancy in Scotland has fallen for the third year in a row – an unprecedented decline. 

• Our heroic NHS staff – nurses, doctors, and porters are working around the clock but they are being failed by this government.

• Dentistry in a perilous state, with more and more people unable to access an NHS dentist, and forced to go private.

Sadly, a two-tier health service is fast becoming the norm under the SNP.  We must never ever lose sight of what is the most important thing about our NHS – and that is the care of patients.

There is not a single person in this room who has not been a patient or will not be a patient in our NHS.

But sadly, due to 17 years of SNP failure the situation for patients is getting worse.  That’s why at the heart of all of Labour’s plans to renew the NHS are patients.

An NHS where we’re not simply treating illness after the fact but investing in preventative care and building healthier communities across Scotland.

Let me be honest with you, conference – we have a mammoth task ahead and sticking plasters simply won’t work anymore.  We need radical change throughout the system to make it fit for the future.

And so just as we are the Party who created the NHS; it’s our job now to save it.  That is the change that Scotland needs.

Last year at party conference, I laid out Labour’s plans to scrap the health boards. At the moment, we have over 50 health and social care bodies for a country of 5 million people. This is top heavy, it’s inefficient, and it’s unsustainable.

We need a greater focus on primary care, devolving decision making to local areas, including rural and island communities, and having doctors and nurses shaping the future of the service.  We need to operate as one NHS – with decisions made locally in the interest of patients.

Yesterday, Anas set out Labour’s bold plan to use money reclaimed by ending the non-dom tax loophole.  A Scottish Labour Government will deliver 160,000 more NHS appointments every year to slash waiting lists.  Our plan will lead to people being treated faster, saving lives, boosting productivity and getting our country working again.  This is the change patients need.  This is the change Scotland needs. 

NATIONAL CLINICAL COUNCIL 

Our plans for the NHS are about so much more than short term sticking plaster solutions.  That is why today I can announce that a future Scottish Labour Government will establish a National Clinical Council – made up of health professionals – to advise the government on how best to run the NHS.

The Clinical Council will be made up of those who know it best –

• the doctors,
• the nurses
• the allied health professionals

Every single one of them at the coalface of our NHS – the people who are saving lives day in and day out. Let me reassure patients and staff – this is no gimmick or cheap headline. Our NHS is too important for that.  That is why this Council will be a statutory body that is empowered to advise Health Ministers on service change and workforce planning. Critically, given the toxic culture of cover-up and secrecy we’ve witnessed in the SNP Government, the Council will advise on patient safety. We owe this to Milly Main’s family and to all the victims of clinical malpractice:

• whether it’s those people treated by Dr Eljamel in Tayside
• or the mesh injured women who campaigned so hard for justice.

Dame Jackie Baillie, Millie Main and her mother, and Anas Sarwar fighting against NHS cover-ups.

I promise that corporate cover up will not be tolerated in the NHS under a Scottish Labour Government.  Working for the people of Scotland, the Council will advise Ministers on what the NHS needs and will have their voice heard at the highest level of government.  Putting their expertise at the heart of government, valuing their service and enormous potential – this is how we deliver the patient-centred NHS of the future. This is the change that a Scottish Labour Government will make to our NHS. This is the change Scotland needs.

TECHNOLOGY

As we tackle waiting lists, as we empower clinicians, and take on the bureaucracy that has stifled our NHS, we also need to look to the future.  Do you know, it’s hard to believe it when I look around this room – but we are an ageing population.  Of course that’s a good thing, but as we age, the stresses upon our NHS will only be greater.  Worryingly, in far too many ways the NHS is still stuck in the past.  We have an NHS that has not undergone major technological change since the last century.  This has led to the bizarre situation where in the year 2024 doctors are still carrying bleepers – and patients get letters for appointments that have long passed.  We have exhausted GPs thumbing through prescriptions that need to be signed manually, when digital options exist and are already used elsewhere in the UK.  We have CT scanners and MRI machines that are decades old.  Put simply: our NHS is stuck in the 20th century. Under the SNP – we have analogue working in a digital age.

That’s why Scottish Labour is committed to harnessing the opportunities that digital technology offers to modernise our NHS.

In doing so, we can transform healthcare and ensure that clinicians have access to state-of-the-art technology to diagnose patients earlier, faster, and improve outcomes.  We need to make it easier for patients to book appointments and ultimately control how they interact with NHS services.  We have innovative tech companies headquartered in Scotland providing digital solutions for NHS England. Their innovation ignored by the Scottish Government.  Scotland is standing still as other countries invest in the future of healthcare.  We will put this right and ensure that patients and staff can benefit from the opportunities digital innovation offers. This, is the change our NHS needs.

CAPITAL INFRASTRUCTURE 

The need for change could not be clearer.  The SNP government has demonstrated that they are not capable of protecting our NHS for the future.  Thanks to SNP financial mismanagement, scores of vital infrastructure projects across Scotland have been cancelled.  From the Edinburgh Eye Pavilion to the flagship National Treatment Centres in Ayrshire & Arran, Grampian, Lanarkshire, Lothian and Tayside; ALL GONE.  The cancer centre in Edinburgh; GONE.  Barra Hospital; GONE.  The redesign of Caithness General Hospital and the revamping Raigmore’s maternity services; GONE.  The desperately needed health centres and GP surgeries in East Calder and Lochgelly and Kincardine. GONE.

All of them cancelled or delayed indefinitely.

And in the Cabinet Secretary’s own backyard:

• the downgrading of the world beating Wishaw Neonatal Unit

• the Monklands replacement project under threat

• NHS Lanarkshire is facing over one hundred million pounds of a blackhole.

But why does this matter?  It’s the reality of SNP broken promises to communities the length and breadth of Scotland.  Our NHS is in crisis – and at the very time when investment is so desperately needed – the SNP choose to pull the plug.  They have no answers about what they will do instead. No vision, no ideas for the future. Blame someone else and take no responsibility for their incompetence and their failure. And it’s the people of Scotland that pay the price. This is why we need change.

SOCIAL CARE 

It’s not just the NHS that the SNP are failing. Look at social care – we have thousands of people in need of care packages being turned away – not just numbers on a spreadsheet, but our family, our friends and neighbours. For those who have a care package at home, they are burdened with care charges that the SNP promised to abolish and then refused to do so.  We know that supporting our citizens to live independently in their own communities is about dignity and respect.  The SNP don’t get it – and that’s why they remain wedded to a National Care Service bill that will be delayed for years and will cost billions, with not one penny going on care just now.  I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – Scottish Labour supports the creation of a National Care Service – it was our idea. This Bill, as it stands, does not work.

That’s why today I’m calling on Neil Gray to act immediately to fix our broken care services.

• remove non-residential care charges

• support unpaid carers

• Implement Anne’s Law now

• and urgently address the shortage of care packages.

Our social care workforce is worth their weight in gold.  We know that caring is not simply a job; it’s a vocation.  That is why Labour is committed to ensuring that care workers are treated and valued like the professionals we know they are.

A UK Labour Government will deliver its New Deal for Working People to make work pay. This will benefit care workers and staff in the NHS, some of whom are on zero hours contracts. The SNP and Scottish Greens might be happy with £12 per hour for care workers, but we’re not. The fight for £15 continues. That is the change Scotland needs. 

CLOSING 

Conference, we are the party that delivered the NHS, and we will fight for its future.  For too long, the people of Scotland have paid the price of SNP mismanagement and failure. Their time is up.  This year will be a watershed moment in politics, but it is the beginning of a journey and not the end.

By electing more Scottish Labour MPs we increase our influence at the very heart of a UK Labour Government.  A Labour government that will transform our NHS and deliver for the people of Scotland.

Conference we are the change that Scotland needs. Let’s get out there and change our country.

• Dame Jackie Baillie is the MSP for Dumbarton constituency and deputy leader of the Scottish Labour Party. She is also Scottish Labour’s parliamentary spokesperson for Health matters.