19 October, 2018

Monica Lennon MSP, Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport.

The hard work and professionalism of our NHS staff is what keeps our health service running day in and day out – without them, the system simply wouldn’t exist. .

Sadly, amid a deepening staffing crisis, the mental health of NHS workers has been deteriorating – with the number of absences due to staff suffering stress soaring in recent years.

New analysis by Scottish Labour has uncovered that between 2015/16 and 2017/18, the number of stress-led staff absences rocketed by 17.6 per cent.

As a result, the equivalent of more than one million work days have been lost during this period, heaping further pressure on under resourced hospitals and health services.

The SNP has created a staffing crisis in our NHS, with more than 3,000 nursing and midwifery posts lying unfilled.

A crisis worsened by Nicola Sturgeon’s decision to cut the number of training posts whilst she was Health Secretary. That decision was wrong then and it has been proven to have had serious consequences in the years since.

🏥 The reality of Scotland’s NHS under the SNP is very different from Nicola Sturgeon’s rhetoric 👇 pic.twitter.com/VJxhQBoSB0

— Scottish Labour (@scottishlabour) October 13, 2018

Unlike the SNP, Scottish Labour has listened to what people working in our health service say has to change and our workforce commission is focused on making the NHS fit for the future.

Staff are the foundation of our NHS and their wellbeing should not be overlooked or sacrificed as they care for others. Labour created the NHS and we will not accept this complacency from a tired and timid government.

Our hardworking and dedicated NHS staff deserve better than this, and I will do everything I can to fight for a better deal for them.