The First Minister talks as if this is year zero. It is not. After 18 years in charge of our NHS, there is no one else left to blame.
Let us take the crisis in primary care as an example. Back in 2018, the SNP unveiled a big new plan with the usual fanfare. It promised to deliver 800 more general practitioners. The result is that, today, there are fewer whole-time equivalent GPs while demand has soared. In fact, since 2013, the number of whole-time equivalent GPs has fallen by more than 200 while the SNP has cut funding time and again. It is the SNP’s constant cycle of failure: create a problem, announce a plan and things get worse, so rinse and repeat.
Dr Iain Morrison, chair of the British Medical Association’s Scottish GP committee, told the BBC that general practice is at “crisis point”. Is he wrong?
