The pressure has ramped up on the Health Secretary following a damning assessment of the state of the NHS by Scotland’s public spending watchdog.
The health service is now struggling to maintain care standards with boards forced into making nearly £400m of cuts last year, said Scotland’s auditor general.
All but one of the eight key NHS performance measures were missed, as patients endured long waits for cancer, A&E and mental health treatment, the analysis of NHS Scotland in 2016/17 reported.
Meanwhile, auditors found that “Scotland’s health is not improving and significant inequalities remain”.
It has led Scottish Labour to issue a fresh demand for the sacking of Shona Robison, the Dundee East MSP, as Health Secretary.
Anas Sarwar, the party’s health spokesman, said: “Nicola Sturgeon needs to show she recognises the problems that have built up on her watch, and remove Shona Robison from the health brief.”
A spokesman for Shona Robison said it is “disappointing” Mr Sarwar has resorted to “childish attacks, filled with school-boy errors”.
The report found that while there is a committed workforce and high patient satisfaction, there are signs the NHS is struggling to maintain care standards amid increasing stain on the service.
Funding is not keeping up with demand, while general practice faces “significant challenges”, the auditors said.
Caroline Gardner, the auditor general, said the report makes clear that healthcare “must be must be delivered differently if it is to withstand growing pressure on services”.
“There is no simple solution, but these fundamental areas must be addressed if reform is to deliver the scale of transformation that’s needed across the NHS,” she said.
“Involving staff, the public and bodies across the public sector will also be crucial for success.”
Scottish Conservative shadow health secretary Miles Briggs said: “This report exposes just how badly the SNP has mismanaged the NHS since it came to power more than 10 years ago.”
Ms Robison said: “We have long been realistic about the challenges for the NHS and the need for change.
“Alongside record investment of over £13 billion, including almost half a billion pounds of NHS spending being invested in social care services alone, we are looking at new ways of delivering services that meet the changing needs of people across Scotland.”
Financial warnings for Tayside and Fife
NHS Fife risks plunging into financial crisis over its reliance on one-off cuts, says a senior MSP.
The kingdom’s health board was the most dependent on non-recurring savings in the country, according the Audit Scotland report for 2016/17.
Health chiefs managed to balance the books last year – but only through cuts that cannot be rolled over into following years.
Financially-stricken NHS Tayside, which must find more than £200m of savings over five years, was the only health board in the country last year to require a government loan to break even, the Audit Scotland report revealed.
The auditor general Caroline Gardner said that “increasing reliance on non-recurring savings is unsustainable”.
“This is because it is becoming more and more difficult for NHS boards to identify areas in which they can make one-off savings,” she said.
“And boards that make high levels of one-off savings will have to find more savings in future years as they have less recurring savings to use.”
Willie Rennie, the Scottish Liberal Democrat leader and Fife MSP, said: “Fife’s reliance on one off savings is not sustainable and if not addressed urgently then the health board could be facing a financial crisis.”
Carol Potter, NHS Fife’s finance director, said achieving a budget surplus of £234,000 for 2016/17 was testament to the hard work of staff.
“Whilst we accept that a sizeable proportion of our savings in 2016/17 were non-recurring, this was very much in line with our financial planning,” she added.
“The work to modernise and improve the efficiency of our services is ongoing in the face of a difficult financial challenge.”
