Former health secretary calls for National Care Service to be axed
Flagship plans to establish a National Care Service for Scotland should be “withdrawn with immediate effect”, former health secretary Alex Neil has said, as he insisted action is needed now to tackle the “crisis” in the NHS.
Theformersnpmspdeclared actionwasneededtotacklestaff shortages in the health service, asheurgedcurrentministersto consider measures such as giving grants to medical students who commit to working in the NHS and providing freeaccommodation for junior doctors and nurses.
He also insisted the structure of the health service needs to be “streamlined”, suggesting Scotland should have “about three orfourstrategicregionalhealthcare authorities”.
To help tackle problems in social care, Mr Neil, who served as health secretary under Alex Salmond from 2012 to 2014, calledformoneyearmarkedfor freezing council tax to instead go towards “tackling the crisis in social care”.
He also suggested the £200 million set aside for active travel should be given to social care, saying this was a “much higher policy priority by any measurement”.
Mr Neil made the demands in anarticleforthinktankreform Scotland, in which he insisted that if the current Government “isseriousaboutaddressingthe crisis, it needs to do much more than it is currently doing and it needs to do so now”.
Complaining that “chronic under-funding” had impacted the NHS, Mr Neil said: “We do not have enough doctors, nurses, and other medics.
“We do not have enough of the modernequipmenttohelpwith accurate and speedy diagnosis. We do not have enough beds in our hospitals and care homes.” Hesaidthescottish Government’s current target of growing the NHS workforce by one per cent over five years – set in March 2020 was “totally inadequate” and needed to be “urgently revised”.
Toimprovestaffingherecommended NHS pay be restored to pre 2010 levels, saying this would make the service “internationally competitive”.
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “Our NHS Recovery plan outlines our strategy to re-mobilise our health service and ensure patients are receiving the best possible care.”