Scotland's NHS needs more than 'ya-boo' politics

The fact the Conservatives chose to lead with health yesterday is surprising for two reasons.

Firstly, because it is the issue which carries the most baggage in terms of association with the party south of the border – despite Ruth Davidson taking an entirely separate policy direction – and leaves them open to easy counterattacks from the SNP and Labour.

Secondly, before the election deputy leader Jackson Carlaw was bigging up the party’s commitment to cross-party working in the face of the big societal challenges facing the NHS.

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During a breakfast Q&A with Holyrood editor Mandy Rhodes ahead of the election, Carlaw said both the public and the third sector wanted consensus politics in health.

“They can see the hugely ageing population; they understand the pressures that exist now. I think the public have come to be a bit less influenced by politicians who say ‘I’m the only person who knows what to do with health and everybody else is going to betray the health service’,” he said.

Yet yesterday Ruth Davidson went in heavy on health at First Minister’s Questions.

Figures on the increasing use of agency nurses, she said, highlighted bigger problems with recruitment and retention. “We need a serious and honest debate about how we best create a sustainable NHS; we do not need an SNP spin operation that tries to bury bad news because it is politically inconvenient. We have gaps in nursing, gaps in consultants and gaps in general practitioners. After nine years, is it not time that the SNP Government sorted that out?” she asked.

Nicola Sturgeon pointed out overall staff numbers in Scotland’s NHS are up. “The NHS is in good hands,” she insisted.

Another Tory, Lothians MSP Miles Briggs, also brought up Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service after the services medical director had warned about the impact of budget cuts.

“We have pledged to provide above-inflation increases in funding to the health service over the course of the session,” replied Sturgeon.

Of course the opposition is right, the NHS faces a bottomless pit of challenges in the face of an ageing population with increasingly complex conditions and a limited budget. Recruitment and retention across the NHS is a very serious issue indeed.

However, unless they can offer constructive solutions or push for substantial further investment – and the cuts elsewhere that would bring – the opposition risk descending into the very “ya-boo – we promised more than you did” politics Carlaw told us would achieve “absolutely nothing”.