SNP finance chief promises Fife patients NHS waits will improve after cash injection

Finance Secretary Shona Robison visited the national treatment centre in Kirkcaldy after analysis found extra funding in the NHS had not translated into increased delivery.

By Alasdair Clark

February 4 2025, 6:00am

Shona Robison promised to drive down waiting times in Kirkcaldy. Image: PA.

SNP Finance Secretary Shona Robison says long surgery wait times in Fife will improve as she pinned hopes on an NHS budget boost.

Ms Robison visited the national treatment centre in Kirkcaldy on Monday ahead of a debate spending plans today.

The government will increase the health service budget to a record £21.7 billion.

But it comes as a leading think-tank, the Institute for Fiscal Studies, warned extra funding in the NHS had not translated into increased delivery.

The finance secretary insisted the NHS would improve with the budget increase. Image: Kenny Smith/DC Thomson.

Ms Robison said in response: “It’s important what then happens with that resource.

“That’s why the plan that’s been set out and is being overseen by the first minister means we will see 150,000 additional appointments and procedures delivered next year.

“National treatment centres like the one in Kirkcaldy will contribute 10,000 off those additional procedures.”

Some patients ‘waiting far too long’

Asked if the NHS is failing patients, Ms Robison said: “There are some patients who have been waiting too long. I have to say though the staff in the NHS work very hard and I hear some very good stories about people’s experience.”

She said units like the one in Fife will help cut waiting lists.

Nicola Sturgeon opened the national treatment centre in 2023, but it is yet to improve waiting times. Image: Scottish Government.

NHS Fife has some of the worst surgery waiting times in Scotland, with some patients left waiting two years or more – including for operations at the unit Ms Robison was visiting.

The government has said it will end waits of over one year by March 2026 – despite patients having an existing legal right to treatment within 12 weeks.

NHS Fife met this standard in only 47% of cases according to an Audit Scotland report last year.

Finance Secretary Shona Robison. Image: Kenny Smith/DC Thomson.

She told The Courier: “It’s a staging post. I think we need to set out very clearly what it going to be delivered.

“It will be delivered with the resources available.”

Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy MP Melanie Ward said Ms Robison should have spent her time in the Lang Toun apologising to patients.

Ms Ward said: “She should have apologised because A&E waiting times are so out of control that patients are sometimes being treated in a makeshift ward outside the hospital.”

Queues of ambulances outside the hospital in Kirkcaldy. Image: Steve Brown/DC Thomson.

“She should have apologised to the hundreds of Fifers waiting in pain for treatment for more than a year.

“She should have apologised for the fact that the SNP Scottish Government has deprioritised Fife and refuses to deliver mental health services that are fit for purpose.”