JOHN Swinney has said that the upcoming Scottish Government Budget will have “improving the NHS at its heart”.
The First Minister called on other parties to support the SNP’s spending plans – which can only pass with the help of the opposition.
It comes after a report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) found that Scotland’s NHS was getting worse after Covid while the English healthcare system was improving.
Swinney (below) said that Scots knew “what a precious institution” the NHS is and said that Scotland had the best-performing core accident and emergency units in the UK for the last nine years.
He also highlighted that Scotland had more GPs per head than anywhere else in the UK and had avoided the NHS strikes which hit England in the last two years.
However, the IFS said that while NHS performance was down in both Scotland and England, the situation was worsening north of the Border.
The study found that the elective waiting list in Scotland had continued to grow in the last year and there was a larger share of patients waiting more than four hours at A&E than in England.
Swinney blamed Covid for the declining performance of the Scottish NHS, saying the pandemic had put “huge pressure” on the healthcare system.
He said that since becoming First Minister earlier this year he had “thrown the weight of the Scottish Government behind tackling some of the key challenges it faces,” such as increasing hospital capacity and making it easier to see a GP.
Swinney added: “Our Budget this week will be a Budget which has improving the NHS at its heart. We have listened carefully to suggestions from patients and staff – as well as engaging constructively with organisations and political parties across the parliament.
“I want to make progress on improving our NHS, but to do that, Parliament must approve our Budget bill in order to unlock investment which will drive the long-term and lasting improvements – and the healthier population - that we all want to see.”
Scottish Labour said the SNP were “out of excuses” after a record funding award of £47.7 billion next year at Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s Budget in October.
Michael Marra (below), Labour’s finance spokesperson, said: “For 14 years, the Tories have provided cover for the SNP’s financial failures and reckless waste – but that ends here.
“Now that Labour has turned the page on Tory austerity and delivered record levels of funding for Scotland, the SNP has to stop the blame game and own its decisions.
“Right now almost one in six Scots are on an NHS waiting list, exam results are declining, our justice system is at breaking point and countless Scots are suffering as a result of the housing emergency.”
It comes after the Scottish LibDems suggested they were nearing a deal with the SNP to help pass the Budget.
Party leader Alex Cole-Hamilton (above) told the Herald on Sunday that his party’s asks were not “unreasonable” and that there were “areas of great commonality between us and the SNP”.
Meanwhile, the Scottish Greens told the Sunday National they had two key asks the SNP must meet for them to support the Budget: extending the free school meals programme to all P6 and P7 pupils and a £2 cap on bus fares.
Green finance spokesperson Ross Greer said those policies would give the First Minister the “chance to show the kind of Scotland he wants to build”.
