The SNP’s grip on power will end next year if voters enter the polling booths thinking about the NHS. John Swinney’s latest strategy to reboot the health service requires an act of collective amnesia by Scots.
They will have to forget Nicola Sturgeon was re-elected in 2021 on a promise to implement a bold NHS recovery plan. She promised to bring down waiting time within targets, but four years later one in six Scots is waiting for treatment and experts believe the figure will rise.
Sturgeon also said a national care service would be created to tackle the many problems in social care. This grand plan was binned last week.
And while Swinney announced a new NHS app in his speech, voters will have to forget a digital overhaul was key to the SNP’s health offer last time. Scots will also have to forget the identity of the Sturgeon Government enforcer who was supposed to implement her wishes. Step forward John Swinney.
A journalist cheekily put it to Swinney yesterday that he must be angry that the last Covid Recovery Secretary had left him such a mess. Referring to himself, he replied: “The last Covid Recovery Secretary was a great guy.” But patients need more from Swinney than jokes.
The health service is a lifeline for Scots who would not be able to afford care if they had to pay for it. The reality is patients struggle to get a GP appointment quickly and find themselves waiting in agony for operations.
Public satisfaction levels with the NHS are low and Scots who have paid taxes all their lives are dipping into their savings. Swinney has done well so far as First Minister, but he knows the NHS is a shambles and he must shoulder some of the blame.
He and his colleagues have been long on rhetoric on the NHS and short on delivery since 2007. Next year’s election will either be used by Scots to cast a mid term judgement on Keir Starmer, or to deliver a verdict on the SNP.
If NHS failure is at the top of the SNP charge sheet, voters will have to find them guilty.
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