A Labour MSP ridiculed the SNP’s Health Secretary for measuring her success against much-maligned Tory Jeremy Hunt.
Anas Sarwar, Scottish Labour’s health spokesman, said Shona Robison should set her standards higher than being “the second worst health secretary in the UK”.
She was also rounded on by Scottish Conservative Donald Cameron, who accused the SNP of behaving “like the band on the Titanic” by trying to persuade people that all is well in the NHS.
Ms Robison, who is also Dundee East MSP, hit back during the Holyrood debate by saying the NHS is performing better in Scotland than in England, where it is managed by the Conservative Party.
She said: “SNP members will point out the double standard in the Tories coming to the chamber to criticise our record on the NHS, when the record of their own party in government in England is woeful, to say the least.
“I could quote many organisations that are saying much more powerful words about the record of the Tory party in charge of the NHS in England.
“We have to look only at the junior doctors strikes that have been happening in England and compare that to the constructive partnership relationship that we have with our professions here, north of the border.”
The NHS in Scotland has been facing a staffing crisis, with a shortage of GPs and health boards heavily reliant on agency workers.
Mr Sarwar said Ms Robison was selling Scotland short by using Mr Hunt as a yardstick for her own performance.
“The cabinet secretary chooses to use Jeremy Hunt’s record as the measure of her success. I have got to say is that the limit of our ambition for Scotland the limit for our ambition for Scotland’s NHS?” he said.
“I give it to the health secretary. She is better than Jeremy Hunt, but I hardly think being the second worst health secretary in the UK is much of a compliment.”
Mr Cameron, who is the Scottish Conservatives shadow health secretary, said “parroting” record figures of staff and investment is “no answer to this crisis”.
“There are record numbers of people getting old in Scotland, record number of demands on the NHS.
“It is quite simply selling a fantasy that our NHS is coping under SNP stewardship.
“Rather like the band on the Titanic, the Scottish Government is trying to persuade us that all is well – when patently it is not. Nobody is buying it.”
Meanwhile, Nicola Sturgeon unveiled a £1 million warchest to help A&E services ahead of the winter, when pressure on the health service peaks. It was dubbed a “tiny sticking plaster”, by Alex Cole-Hamilton, the Scottish Liberal Democrats’ health spokesman.