September 5, 2018 Blog

Scotland’s NHS is at a ‘tipping point’ due to SNP mismanagement

05 September, 2018

Scotland’s NHS is at a ‘tipping point’ amid a staffing crisis created by Nicola Sturgeon and her SNP government.

That is the warning given from the head of the BMA Scotland, the country’s leading professional association of doctors.

Dr Lewis Morrison said “staffing levels are becoming critical” in the NHS under the SNP government, leaving GP practices no option but to close their doors to their patients.

Embarrassingly for Nicola Sturgeon, he also said doctors in Tory-run NHS England think Scottish hospitals are not an attractive place to come to work in, deepening the staffing crisis.

Dr Morrison’s warning comes just a day after new figures showed:

  •  Unfilled nursing and midwifery posts are on the rise and now top 3,300.
  •  The number of vacant consultancies posts left unfilled for six months is up 17.9 per cent in the last year.
  •  Waiting time performance for child and adolescent mental health services at a record low.
  • More than 500 operations cancelled in our hospitals due to a lack of resources.

Labour is on the side of patients and hard-pressed NHS staff.

It’s time for Nicola Sturgeon to stop putting nationalism before our National Health Service and listen to Scottish Labour’s call to use the powers of the parliament to give our hard-pressed NHS staff the resources they need alongside a proper workforce plan to ensure patients get the care they deserve.