By Bill Heaney
Dumbarton MSP Jackie Baillie is not interested in improvements to the National Health Service, according to First Minister John Swinney.
The Scottish Labour deputy leader and health spokesperson’s only interest is in “politics, politics and politics” and creating alarm amongst patients with her questions about cancer.
Dame Jackie was in the Labour hot seat in the absence of Anas Sarwar for First Minister’s Questions at Holyrood on Thursday.
“A pledge for a digital front door was made in 2021 but have not been delivered. Fast-track cancer diagnostic centres in every health board were promised in 2021 but have not been delivered. The height of the SNP’s ambition is that patients will wait “only” a year for treatment.
“Does the SNP really think that that is success? It is little surprise that Colin Poolman, the director of the Royal College of Nursing Scotland, said that ‘nursing staff reading this will be left scratching their heads wondering just how the aspirations in the plan will be achieved in reality’.
“Is it not the case that the SNP Government is desperately scrambling around because it knows, as everybody else in Scotland does, that it has broken Scotland’s NHS?”
“I set out in my speech at the National Robotarium in January exactly how the Scottish Government is going about addressing that. Let me give Jackie Baillie some reassurance about the progress that we are making.
“In April 2024, the Scottish Government provided additional funding to NHS boards to deliver 64,000 additional procedures by March 2025. By the end of January, 75,500 additional procedures had been delivered.
“We promised 64,000 over a whole year, and within 10 months we delivered 75,500. In addition to that, all four key radiology diagnostic tests have shown a 4 per cent decrease in the total waiting list size for diagnostic tests.
“The Scottish Government is focused on delivering progress for the people of Scotland, and that is what we are delivering now.”
Dame Jackie persisted: “The First Minister talks as if this is year zero. It is not. After 18 years in charge of our NHS, there is no one else left to blame.
“Let us take the crisis in primary care as an example. Back in 2018, the SNP unveiled a big new plan with the usual fanfare. It promised to deliver 800 more general practitioners. The result is that, today, there are fewer whole-time equivalent GPs while demand has soared.
“In fact, since 2013, the number of whole-time equivalent GPs has fallen by more than 200 while the SNP has cut funding time and again. It is the SNP’s constant cycle of failure: create a problem, announce a plan and things get worse, so rinse and repeat.”
“Dr Iain Morrison, chair of the British Medical Association’s Scottish GP committee, told the BBC that general practice is at “crisis point”. Is he wrong?”
Dumbarton, Clydebank and Vale of Leven Health Centres.
John Swinney said: “Jackie Baillie ignores the impact on population health of a global pandemic that has had a colossal impact not just on the health service in Scotland but across the United Kingdom and in every affected country in the world. I recognise the challenges in the NHS.
“On GPs, we have seen an increase in numbers—the total headcount—by 307 since 2017. In Scotland, we already have 82 GPs per 100,000 of population, compared to 64 in England, 67 in Wales and 75 in Northern Ireland.
“We have invested in general practice to ensure that it is strong to meet the needs of the current period. We have also invested in broadening the staff base in general practice and in recruitment through health boards to ensure that allied health professionals are able to contribute to meeting the demand that, as a result of the Covid pandemic, now presents itself in the national health service.
“Let me assure Jackie Baillie that the Government is absolutely focused on delivering improvements in the national health service. We are beginning to see the fruits of that plan, which is resulting in more procedures, more activity and more engagement in the national health service. There will be more of that to come in the period ahead, because the Government has put a record sum of money in to support the service.”
“NHS nurses, doctors and ambulance workers are not fooled. Neither are 800,000 Scots who are stuck in pain on an NHS waiting list. They deserve more than the SNP’s hollow apologies and half-baked plans that never get delivered.
“Is it not the case that, after 18 years in charge, if the SNP had a plan to fix the NHS, it would have done it by now?”
John Swinney, left, looked like a man who had heard all this before.He said: “Well, that is just what we hear from Jackie Baillie every single week, and it ignores—[Interruption.] It ignores the facts of what is going on.
“Jackie Baillie raised some really important issues about cancer care. It is not good enough for Jackie Baillie to create alarm by putting those questions. Let us take the 31-day treatment standard. Some 94.7 per cent of patients were treated within 31 days of a decision to treat.
“The median wait is four days. Those figures are a demonstration of the national health service’s achievements.
“Most importantly, we are treating more cancer patients on time, within both standards, compared with the same quarter five years ago: the figures are 4.5 per cent more patients being seen within the 31-day standard and 1.6 per cent more within the 62-day standard.
“Jackie Baillie mentioned mental health services. For the first time, we are now meeting the 18-week treatment standard for child and adolescent mental health services, which reflects an important commitment to support the mental health of children and young people in our society.
“This Government is absolutely focused on delivering on the national health service. That is why we put record funding in place, and it is also why Ms Baillie could not find it within herself to back the Government’s budget. She is not interested in investing in the national health service—it is just politics, politics, politics for Jackie Baillie.”
Top of page: Dame Jackie Baillie, Dumbarton MSP and Scottish health spokesperson.