Strain on NHS Scotland may damage SNP’s health in polls
The Scottish National Party is presiding over weakening NHS services, according to a new report that could threaten the party’s reputation.
The damning study, published today by public spending watchdog Audit Scotland, says NHS waiting times in Scotland have worsened in recent years at the same time as the SNP oversaw a cut to the health budget in real terms.
Tighter budgets, increasing demand and rising costs mean the Scottish Government must make “fundamental changes” immediately to avoid a collapse in the quality of healthcare, it warned.
Opposition politicians said the “stark” findings were a sign that the SNP needed to “get a grip” on the NHS, but ministers said they had a “clear vision” for the future of Scotland’s health service and that reforms were already on the way to being delivered.
Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s First Minister, told the SNP conference last week that the party should be judged “on our record” in government. Health is likely to be a key battleground in the lead up to next year’s Scottish Parliament election, which current polls suggest will be won easily by the SNP.
Audit Scotland’s annual report on the state of the health service said that despite more money being put into the NHS, the health budget had actually decreased by 0.7 per cent in real terms since 2008-09, the year after the SNP first won power.
NHS waiting time performance has also “deteriorated” in seven out of nine key areas in the past few years, the report warned, part of a “pattern of steady decline” over the longer term.
It added that although the number of people working for the NHS in Scotland is at a record high, the use of private nursing and midwifery staff increased by 53 per cent in the past year as hospitals and doctors’ surgeries rushed to plug recruitment gaps.
Caroline Gardner, the Auditor General for Scotland, called for ministers to “increase the pace of change” to ensure the survival of the health service. “It will not be able to provide services as it does at present due to the number of pressures it faces within the current challenging financial environment,” she said.
Jackie Baillie, Scottish Labour’s public services spokesperson, accused the SNP of taking a “sticking-plas- ter approach” to the problems facing the NHS.
However, Health Secretary Shona Robison argued that spending on frontline NHS services had increased while the SNP was in power and pointed to a series of reforms. “Scotland’s NHS is now performing better against tougher targets, and as Audit Scotland highlights, we have a record-high workforce and the level and quality of care provided to patients has contributed to people living longer, along with continued advances in diagnosis, treatment and care,” she said.
“In addition we have delivered historically low waiting times, large reductions in hospital infection rates, and some of the highest quality and safest healthcare anywhere in the world.”