Frontline health services must be protected in the face of massive public sector spending cuts, Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray has said.
Health secretary Nicola Sturgeon admitted on Tuesday that the NHS in Scotland is facing “serious financial challenges” because of the first cut in public spending since devolution.
Although she said the NHS is not in for an “easy ride” in coming years, she said a health service free at the point of use remains the health service’s “underlying, founding principle.”
However, the SNP government has consistently refused to be drawn on where it plans to make cuts, despite the Independent Budget Review spelling out the scale of the challenges facing the government last week.
It warned that up to 60,000 public sector jobs might need to be cut in order to control public spending.
Speaking to The Courier on Tuesday, Mr Gray said the SNP should outline its spending plans in broad terms now rather than wait until the results of a UK Government spending review are released in November.
“Our concerns are to protect services that are crucial, ” he said.
“We’ve said our policy should be to protect frontline services our hospitals, schools and police.
“In the health service we need to look at the level of management expenditures in Scotland, which is much higher than elsewhere in the country and consultants’ bonuses, which have caused a fair bit of anger.”
He added that the SNP’s reticence to disclose where they envisage making cuts is making it impossible for public sector bodies to plan ahead, particularly as the threat of industrial action looms after unions rejected a pay offer by the Council of Scottish Local Authorities.
Mr Gray said, “We do need some honesty about this. The problem is the SNP are refusing to take responsibility. We should have had a draft budget but John Swinney has used all sorts of things to hide behind rather than bring a draft budget forward.
“That’s not acceptable. Workers in the public sector deserve some clarity about what the future holds.
“If you look at Dundee where there are two universities, a major teaching hospital and all the local authority workers, they are all concerned about the impact on their jobs.
“The councils are going to have set their budgets and they don’t know what their terms will be. It about time the SNP start taking responsibility.”
However, Mr Gray added that unions must be realistic about pay demands.
The Scottish Budget, which is around £30 billion annually, is expected to be cut by around £3.7 billion over the next four years.
Dr Brian Keighley of the British Medical Association has said NHS boards in Scotland already have a “blanket freeze” on recruitment in place.
Around 4000 NHS jobs are expected to be lost in Scotland this year, including 1500 nurses and midwives.
The NHS is always at the top of the political agenda, but staff shortages, budget cuts, dirty wards and criticisms over care have left it in a critical condition. The Courier investigates what the future holds for the health service can it be nursed back to health?
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