NHS in Scotland stuck in 'doom loop' due to SNP 'incompetence', says Anas Sarwar
Scotland's NHS is stuck in a "doom loop" due to SNP "incompetence", Anas Sarwar has claimed.
The Scottish Labour leader accused John Swinney of having his "head in the sand" after a report found the health service in England was recovering from the impact of the covid pandemic faster than north of the border.
Research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) found NHS performance in Scotland in key areas remains worse than before the pandemic and has "continued to decline".
But the SNP leader insisted "progress" was being made as the NHS seeks to recover from the impact of the Covid pandemic.
He told MSPs the latest figures had shown some signs of improvement. Swinney said: “I accept there is work that remains to be done to improve the performance of the National Health Service but the Government is putting the investment and the focus in to enable that to be the case.”
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Sarwar hit back, saying: “The First Minister has his head in the sand. The IFS make the point we have disproportionately higher spending here in Scotland and we have more staff, but we have poorer performance.
“That points to not staff being wrong, not resources being wrong, but a failure of leadership and a failure of Government.”
The Scottish Labour leader told the First Minister: “On his watch our NHS has plunged into a doom loop of soaring waiting lists and poorer health outcomes.”
He said Swinney “can try to spin the facts all he likes, but the devastating incompetence of the SNP is clear to see”.
The First Minister said he is “the first to acknowledge we have challenges in recovering from the Covid pandemic”, but he added: “The Government is making the investment and making the interventions to ensure that our National Health Service performs in a fashion that meets the needs of the people of Scotland.”
The latest figures show a 7.4% reduction in the number of people waiting for eight key diagnostic tests, he added, while almost three-quarters (73.2%) of cancer patients start treatment within 62 days of their first referral.
The First Minister also said NHS staffing is up by 26% since the SNP came to power in 2007, adding there has been a 50.4% increase in the workforce of consultant oncologists over the last 10 years.
Swinney cited that as showing the SNP is “delivering the progress that people in Scotland require”, as he accused Labour of having “betrayed” pensioners by ending the universal winter fuel payment.
“If Mr Sarwar believes the solution to all of our problems in Scotland is the election of a Labour government, I would ask him to go and have a conversation with pensioners in Scotland today.
"Because in the first few months of a Labour Government, pensioners in this country have been betrayed, who promised change and all they did was slash the financial support for pensioners in our country by cutting the winter fuel payment," he said.
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