Robison must go, Rennie tells his faithful

HEALTH Secretary Shona Robison is facing a vote of no confidence at Holyrood.

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie yesterday demanded that the embattled Dundee East MSP stands down from the Cabinet over the crisis in the NHS.

Mr Rennie says he plans to begin talks with opposition parties and disgruntled SNP backbenchers about forcing through a Holyrood vote of no confidence. The SNP minority government could lose the vote if Labour, the Greens, the Lib Dems and the Conservatives work together.

Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard has already demanded that she is sacked.

The last SNP minister to lose their job amid similar threats was Fiona Hyslop, who was sacked as Education Secretary in 2009 following pressure over failures on class sizes, teacher numbers and a controversial threat to remove schools from council control.

At the Scottish Liberal Democrat conference in Aviemore yesterday, Mr Rennie said Miss Robison must take responsibility for the troubles at crisis-hit NHS Tayside, GP shortages, missed A&E targets and waiting times for mental health treatment. He told delegates: ‘Shona Robison must accept that she is responsible. Change will only come when there is change at the top. She must resign.’

He later told journalists: ‘I will be speaking to Labour and the Conservatives and sounding out the Greens to see if we can orchestrate some kind of continued pressure on all of these areas. We will work across the parties to bring on sustained pressure and appeal to those within the SNP who have problems with local health boards.’

Miss Robison intervened to take control of the running of NHS Tayside earlier this month. Caroline Gardner, the Auditor General for Scotland, said at Holyrood this week that there was a ‘significant question’ about why previous warnings over the board’s finances were not taken seriously.

At the conference yesterday, Mr Rennie said: ‘There’s a shortage of GPs – 800 short within the next few years – a thousand people delayed from discharge from hospital every day because of a lack of home care, accident and emergency waiting targets not met for five years. I say all of this is a mark of an NHS in distress. I say it’s got to change.’

A spokesman for Miss Robison said: ‘Willie Rennie’s petty, personalised attack on Shona does him no credit whatsoever. The Health Secretary has addressed the issues facing NHS Tayside, where a new leadership team has been installed.

‘She is presiding over a health service where we are investing record amounts, with record high numbers of staff. We will get on with the job of delivering for patients and leave Willie Rennie to gripe from the sidelines.’

‘We will bring on sustained pressure’

SHONA Robison has never seemed on top of health, the most difficult brief in Cabinet.

Always at the mercy of events, critics say that her political survival owes too much to the lack of any SNP rising star ready to take over.

A technocrat entirely reliant on a mantra of spend, spend, spend, she has proven entirely unable to conceive of – never mind deliver – the reforms the monolithic NHS is crying out for.

But too many chickens are coming home to roost and the scandal of boards relying on charity funds to cover day-to-day spending should spell the end.

Lib dem leader Willie Rennie says he is preparing the ground for a vote of no confidence.

Intriguingly, he hints disaffected SNP backbenchers may be involved.

If members of a party which is notorious for its groupthink might break ranks to improve the lot of Scottish NHS patients, not even Miss Robison’s personal friendship with the First Minister can keep her in office.