Humza Yousaf's campaign to become the next First Minister has come under fire over his record as health secretary.
The frontrunner in the SNP leadership race endured an uncomfortable session of First Minister's Questions today as opposition parties laid bare the scale of the crisis facing the NHS.
Yousaf, who was appointed health secretary after the 2021 Holyrood election, was forced to watch as Nicola Sturgeon tried to defend his record in office.
It comes as a Freedom of Information request revealed that in recent months a patient in Ayrshire had to wait more than 60 hours to be treated at an A&E ward, while someone in Lanarkshire was left waiting 54 hours.
MSPs also heard how a four-year-old girl with progressive hearing loss named Annika has been left waiting more than 20 weeks for an assessment at the Sick Kids hospital in Edinburgh.
Sue Webber, a Lothians MSP, said the family had now been told they would have to wait a further 11 months as their daughter is currently 778th on a waiting list.
"I hope that is not too uncomfortable for either the First Minister or the Cabinet Secretary to hear," she said.
Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, also took aim at Yousaf and claimed the NHS recovery plan drawn up by the health secretary was "more about spin than substance".
It came after a report published yesterday by Audit Scotland which found a plan to hire 800 new GPs by 2027 was "not on track" and posed a "risk" to the recovery of primary care.
"As a result, patient outcomes are getting worse, staff are burnt out and the NHS is going backwards," Sarwar said.
The Labour leader insisted: “On every single measure, this Health Secretary is failing to get the NHS back on track.
“In fact, this is the worst it has ever been.
"So does the First Minister really believe that the man responsible for failing Scotland’s NHS should be responsible for our country?”
Sturgeon stressed again the decision on who the new leader would be was "one for my party".
The First Minister continued: "Since Humza Yousaf became Health Secretary – and this is what Anas Sarwar fails to mention – there have been, I think, three further waves of a global pandemic that have affected health services all across the UK, Europe and the world, that’s not something that can just be ignored."
Earlier, Scottish Conservatives leader Douglas Ross claimed Yousaf had been a "useless health secretary" who had "made the crisis in Scotland’s health service much worse".
He told Sturgeon: "First Minister, why should a health secretary who has failed our NHS now get to fail the whole of Scotland?
“Humza Yousaf is the worst health secretary since devolution, but it looks like he is going to fail upwards. In any other line of work Humza Yousaf would have been sacked, not promoted.
"Forget being SNP leader, why is he even still in government?"
Sturgeon accepted the health service was facing "significant challenges" which were "more significant than at any point in history of the NHS".
She added: "We are supporting our NHS with record funding, record staffing and the wider support it needs to address these challenges."
Speaking to journalists after FMQs, Yousaf said it was "quite telling" that both the Scottish Conservative leader and his Labour counterpart had attacked him
The Health Secretary said: “It’s quite telling that my opponents want to attack me, want to discredit me quite personally and not focus on any of the other candidates. I think that tells you everything you need to know.”
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