THE BIGGEST RISK TO THE NHS? SNP INCOMPETENCE...

Nicola Sturgeon’s decision to place the future of the NHS at the heart of her General Election campaign is at best amusingly ironic, and at worst a conceited drive which treats the Scottish voters as though they were idiots.

Her latest stunt involves launching a Bill that, she claims, would ensure the health service in Scotland was protected for ever more. Yet it is the First Minister who poses the two greatest risks to the NHS.

of course, her relentless attempts to break up the UK would also lead to the break-up of the NHS, something that would place both patients and staff in danger. and even as she fails in that repeated bid, her SNP administration here is running hospitals and primary care into the ground, and has been since taking power in 2007.

We need only look at the empty shell of a new Sick Kids hospital in Edinburgh, a flagship project from the SNP which was meant to provide world class healthcare for youngsters from its opening in late 2012. instead, staff, patients and their families are still being catered for in a building which is well beyond its sell-by date, while the new facility lies completely and utterly useless.

a similarly botched project is also causing ongoing issues 50 miles along the M8. The Queen Elizabeth – a so-called super-hospital – was opened in Nicola Sturgeon’s back yard at a cost of £800million, and has been beset by all manner of problems, from deaths linked to pigeon droppings to staff protests at parking difficulties.

When put together with repeatedly missed waiting times, a burgeoning maintenance backlog on buildings and a staff shortage and vacancy crisis, it’s evident just how incapable this SNP Government is of doing a proper job of running the NHS.

During the 2014 referendum campaign the SNP said that a No vote would spell the end for the NHS. Fortunately the voters of Scotland saw straight through this lie.

Miss Sturgeon, a former health secretary, has sidelined the health service in favour of trying to split the UK. She and her distracted Government have allowed it to slip into decline, and they have absolutely no idea how to get it back on track.