Jackie Baillie: Labour to deliver a thousand new social care packages

Scottish Labour has pledged to purchase 300 new step-down beds for care homes and deliver 1,000 non-residential care packages if it forms the next government after the Holyrood elections next year.

In her address to Scottish Labour conference, Scottish Labour’s deputy leader said her party will deliver the “most meaningful NHS reform in decades”, pledging to end the corridor crisis and cut NHS waiting lists.

Her speech comes amid a social care crisis. Last summer, the Accounts Commissions found Scottish community health and social care services to be “unsustainable”, revealing resources did not match demand. And last month, the Scottish Government scrapped its flagship plan to create a National Care Service, after losing crucial support.

She said: “Scottish Labour will ensure that our NHS and social care sector have the staff to meet the needs of future generations of patients.

“We will deliver faster access to GPs. We will tackle long waits for treatment once and for all. We will invest in primary and social care to treat people closer to home.

“We will take on the top-heavy bureaucracy that is holding the NHS back and deliver the biggest and most meaningful NHS reform in decades and we will end the SNP's two-tier health service and fix our NHS so that it is once again free at the point of need.”

Earlier this week, Scottish Labour vowed to end the “8am rush” to get a GP appointment, along with other major changes to the health care system. It also pledged to renegotiate GP contracts within 100 days of a Scottish Labour government being formed, in a move which it claims would allow patients to book appointments in advance, as well as get access to a doctor within 48 hours.

Last year, the party also vowed to cut the health boards from 14 to three to tackle bureaucracy and make the sector “fit for the 21^st century”.

Baillie claimed Scotland needed Anas Sarwar as first minister to fix the NHS, adding the SNP had left health professionals “firefighting in a broken system” and facing a mental health crisis.

She told delegates: “We need Anas Sarwar in Bute House leading our country to make the nation a stronger place.

“The fundamental contract that Labour established with the people of this country has been broken by the SNP. Shame on Nicola Sturgeon, shame on Humza Yousaf and shame on John Swinney.

“The Labour Party created the NHS. We will fix it again and what the SNP have broken we will repair.”

She added: “Patients being treated in corridors, dedicated nurses at breaking point because they can't provide the care they so passionately want to deliver. The SNP may deny this reality but the workforce knows better and they deserve better and Scottish Labour will never take our dedicated NHS workforce for granted. We will value you, we will give you the so that you can deliver the care that patients across Scotland deserve.”