Chamber and committees

The RCN in Scotland said this morning that this is

“a wake-up call for the Scottish Government”,

but it is clear from John Swinney’s answers that he is asleep at the wheel, which is why we need a change of direction in this country. He denies reality, so will he listen to what Scottish nurses are saying? One said:

“It is demoralising, frustrating and embarrassing. It feels like patients are a number not a patient.”

Another Scottish nurse said:

“It’s degrading and unsafe as these locations are not designed or intended for patient care and offer little or no privacy.”

Another Scottish nurse said:

“I have had to give IV antibiotics on a chair beside the nurses station to someone septic.”

Another Scottish nurse said:

“I am now in the process of leaving the NHS ... it is fraying at the seams and has left me with mental health problems and trauma.”

That is the damning and sad reality of our NHS under the SNP. Is it not a clear sign that John Swinney and this SNP Government cannot fix the mess that they made, and that we need a new direction in our country?

John Swinney wants to pretend that we have only a winter crisis in the NHS; the reality is that we have a permanent crisis in the NHS on John Swinney’s watch.

The RCN report details the human cost of John Swinney and Neil Gray’s incompetence. Nurses are delivering care in overcrowded or unsuitable places such as corridors, cupboards and even car parks every day. Staff are caring for multiple patients in a single corridor, where they are unable to access oxygen, cardiac monitors and other life-saving equipment. Patients are going into cardiac arrest while in corridors, incontinent patients are left with no privacy and almost 90 per cent of nurses say that patient safety is being compromised. Nurses describe flu patients waiting in corridors next to vulnerable patients and having to discuss miscarriages with couples in overcrowded corridors.

One nurse said:

“I worked throughout Covid-19 and although was a horrendous experience this lack of care in the broken system is worse.”

Is that not the deadly reality of the NHS on John Swinney and the SNP’s watch?

Last week, I raised the case of Robert, a retired policeman from Lanarkshire, who spent five and a half hours on the floor in accident and emergency before being given morphine and a bed. The First Minister apologised but, as usual, he then used hard-working national health service staff as his political shield.

Today, the Royal College of Nursing has published a damning report that lays bare the impact that the crisis has on NHS patients and staff. One nurse said:

“I deliver care in inappropriate settings every single day all day. It deprives the patient of privacy and dignity, it forces us to go against our codes and training.”

That is shameful. Last week, John Swinney apologised to patients, and he has just done that again today. Will he now apologise to the NHS staff that he and his Scottish National Party Government are failing every day?

In October, I warned of a winter crisis brewing in our national health service but, instead of taking action to develop a plan to keep patients and staff safe, the Scottish National Party buried its head in the sand.

The result has been deadly chaos. Over Christmas, 1,642 people waited more than 12 hours in accident and emergency departments, ambulances were put on red alert, a flu wave piled even more pressure on our hospitals, and thousands of people waited for hours even to get their calls answered by NHS 24.

Dr Iain Kennedy of the British Medical Association said:

“The NHS as we know it will struggle to see out another year”.

That is the deadly consequence of John Swinney plunging our NHS into a permanent crisis. Is that not the clearest sign that the SNP is taking Scotland in the wrong direction?

There is no clearer sign that the SNP is taking Scotland in the wrong direction than its woeful record on the NHS. We need faster access to general practitioners, but instead patients are forced to go to accident and emergency, plunging it further into crisis. We need to tackle long waits for treatment, but under the SNP nearly one in six Scots are stuck on a waiting list, with more than 100,000 people waiting for more than a year. We need to tackle the number of bed days that are lost to delayed discharge but, instead, thousands of people are stuck in hospital because, although they have been cleared to leave, they are unable to get a care package.

John Swinney has no plan, and his incompetence is risking the very existence of our NHS. Is it not the case that a change of direction for our NHS cannot come from John Swinney and the SNP? It can come only with a change of Government in 2026.

Our staff deserve praise, but they are being failed by the SNP Government, too. People across Scotland are living with the consequences of SNP failure.

Take the example of Robert, who is a retired policeman from Lanarkshire. He had to attend the accident and emergency department at Wishaw general hospital during the Christmas period due to crippling abdominal pain. Due to a lack of beds, he was forced to lie on the floor—on the floor—in excruciating pain for five and a half hours before he was eventually given morphine and oxycodone. A nurse told the family that it could be worse: one patient had been waiting more than 50 hours for a bed.

Under John Swinney’s watch, Scots who have worked all their lives, such as Robert, are forced to endure painful, dangerous and humiliating circumstances. Robert’s distressed daughter summed it up best when she said:

“My dad gave his all for others in his career, but now I am genuinely scared that the next time something happens to him he won’t make it through because of the mess that the SNP have allowed the NHS to get into.

The SNP couldn’t run a bath, let alone the NHS.”

John Swinney is talking about correcting the mess that his Government has made, but this is about people here and now. I will give one example out of thousands.

Mariam is a single working mum in Glasgow. Almost two years ago, she and her four children were evicted after she complained about mould and leaks that were affecting her children’s health. She was forced to declare herself homeless and was put into temporary accommodation, an hour from her children’s school, where she and her family have been living ever since—five people crammed into a two-bedroom flat. Despite Mariam’s efforts, her daughter, who dreamed of being a dentist, had her education so disrupted by the chaos that she missed out on her dream by just one mark.

The housing emergency has an immediate impact, but can you not see that it is also impacting the life chances and outcomes of our young people? How can the Government be proud of its record?

The facts do speak for themselves. There are 10,000 children in Scotland who are in temporary accommodation, which is a record high, but all that the First Minister wants to do is point to other parts of the country rather than look at his own record of failure.

The truth is that this crisis has been years in the making. I remind members that these are your constituents who I am talking about—children in your own constituencies—who are living in temporary accommodation.

The truth is that this crisis is years in the making. Mariam’s heartbreaking story is just one example out of thousands. [Interruption.]

On John Swinney’s watch, house building is down by 10 per cent, the number of affordable and private homes that have been built is the lowest in more than a decade, and there are more than 11,000 council houses lying empty. Every statistic is another example of a family that has been failed and a future that has been squandered.

As Alison Watson from Shelter Scotland has said:

“Despite declaring a national housing emergency earlier this year, the Scottish Government has failed to get to grips with a deepening crisis ... More than 10,000 children will wake up facing the trauma of homelessness this Christmas—the highest number on record”.

That is 10,000 children without a home to call their own on Christmas morning. First Minister, how many children will wake up homeless under this Government next year?