Cole-Hamilton: Auditor General NHS report damning verdict of Health Secretary

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP has today described the Auditor General’s annual report on the NHS as “a damning verdict of Humza Yousaf’s time as Health Secretary”, after it concluded that the government’s NHS Recovery Plan lacks detailed actions and that key recruitment targets are set to be missed.

In particular, the report indicated that:  

• More people are being added to waiting lists than are being removed from them. People are also waiting longer for treatment, including those with potential cancer diagnoses.
• Key recruitment targets “are unlikely to be met”. The report states that increasing the GP workforce by 800 by 2027 is “not on track”, while 1,000 new mental health staff in primary care is “at risk”.
• The NHS workforce is “under severe pressure” amid concerns over staffing levels, wellbeing, and retention.
• Health boards say that the information provided by the government’s online patient waiting time platform “is not an accurate indication of waiting times” when taken in insolation.  
• Operations are still 25% below pre-pandemic levels and there has been a 17% annual rise in the number of people who can’t leave hospital because social care is unavailable.  

Alex Cole-Hamilton said:  

“Today’s report makes for a damning verdict of the failing NHS Recovery Plan and Humza Yousaf’s time as Health Secretary.

“Record waiting times are getting worse and worse, every corner of the health service is in trouble and now we learn that the staff needed to ease the pressure aren’t going to arrive.

“People will want to know what Humza Yousaf would do differently, therefore, as First Minister. Everyone waiting in pain has been taken for granted. They deserve better than the SNP obsessing over reckless schemes for separation, instead of what really matters, like our NHS.

“The Scottish Liberal Democrat's plan would deliver new hope for health through a burnout prevention strategy, reversing cuts to the mental health budget and the immediate introduction of new fair work measures across social care.”