Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar demanded that the First Minister apologise to the hundreds of thousands of patients left waiting over a year for treatment on the NHS.
First Minister and SNP leader John Swinney (left) and Health Secretary Neil Gray, SNP candidate for the Airdrie constituency, at a pharmacy during campaigning in Calderbank, North Lanarkshire, for the Scottish Parliament elections.
John Swinney has been urged to apologise to all patients who have been left waiting in pain due to the SNP’s failure to run the NHS properly. The Scottish Government has now broken Scotland’s NHS treatment law 918,594 times by failing to treat Scots within the legal 12-week Treatment Time Guarantee.
So ahead of the first televised debate featuring all six party leaders, the First Minister is facing demands to say sorry over his handling of the health service. The figure includes 819,052 completed waits and 99,542 ongoing waits that breached the legal guarantee, laying bare the scale of the NHS crisis after 20 years of SNP Government.
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar will say Scotland needs change after 20 years of SNP government and that a Scottish Labour government will fix the mess, get the basics right and build a better future for Scotland. He pointed out that the SNP is ignoring the law and failing patients, with people left waiting in pain, stuck on growing waiting lists and too often forced to pay out of pocket for care they should receive on the NHS.
Mr Swinney promised all Scots that he would eradicate all year-long waits by the end of March but failed to live up to this. A&E waiting times are also still high, and ambulances are still piling up outside hospitals due to delayed discharges being at almost record highs.
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Mr Sarwar said: “Our NHS is not safe with John Swinney and the SNP. They have now broken Scotland’s NHS treatment law 918,594 times, leaving patients waiting in pain because they failed to run the NHS properly. Tonight on television, right at start of the debate, John Swinney should apologise to every single patient who has suffered because the SNP could not get the basics right.
“My first priority as First Minister will be to cut waiting lists and put our NHS first so it is there when you need it. That means using all available capacity to get patients treated faster, breaking down barriers between health boards, and making sure funding follows the patient so the NHS focuses on getting people care on time.
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“After two decades of broken promises, our NHS cannot survive another SNP government. On May 7, vote Scottish Labour on both votes for the change Scotland needs. “
The SNP outlined some of its health manifesto promises, which included an NHS app it first promised would go live by 2023, as well as finally catching up with England by launching digital prescriptions. Health Secretary Neil Gray said: “New technology and innovation is at the heart of our plan for Scotland’s NHS.
“We will build out the features of our NHS MyCare app – created in-house free from dodgy tech giants like Palantir – which will be the most comprehensive app on these islands. Paper prescriptions will make way for digital ones, making it far easier for people to access medicines with a GP-to-pharmacy end-to-end system.
Patients in England already have access to an NHS app(Image: Getty)
“On top of that, we will develop a brand new NHS AI Hub to drive safe and ethical solutions for our NHS to support our staff, not replace them. When it comes to our NHS we will be bold and embrace the opportunities that technology presents us – that’s how to build a modern health service that works for patients and that’s what you get with an SNP government on Scotland’s side.“Under John Swinney’s experienced leadership, we have a plan for our NHS and it’s working – a vote for the SNP on 7th May is a vote to modernise our NHS even further.”
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