Jackie Baillie: Labour will prioritise NHS workforce

A Scottish Labour government will focus on retaining the health and care workforce as an “immediate priority”, the party’s deputy leader has said.

Speaking at Scottish Labour’s annual conference during a Holyrood fringe event on building a health and social care workforce for the future, in partnership with key sector stakeholders, Jackie Baillie said consolidating the current workforce is crucial for her party’s plans to deliver the reforms to the health and care sector after the Scottish Parliament elections next year.

Baillie told the panel, consisting of the British Medical Association (BMA), the Royal College of Nursing Scotland (RCNS), the British Association of Social Workers and the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, her party will prioritise putting in place a workforce plan, adding that funding will go to attracting more resident doctors into becoming GPs.

She said: “There are lots of medical students, not enough of them choose general practice. We need to look at how we influence the generation coming through to choose general practice, because it will be exciting. That's where the money is going to go. And I'm giving them notice now.”

There was a consensus on the panel for the need to put the workforce first, with professionals pointing to burnout forcing professionals to retire early.

Dr Iain Kennedy, chair of the BMA Scottish council said: “We've sorted out pensions to a degree, that's improving the environment so that we can start to think about recruitment without feeling guilty that we are encouraging youngsters to come to a profession that we know is seriously bad for your health and seriously stressful and full of moral injury, because you feel that you're letting people down all the time.”

Earlier in the day, Baillie pledged a future Scottish Labour government will to deliver 1,000 new care at home packages and 300 additional step-down beds for care homes.

During her speech, she criticised the SNP’s political choices for leaving health professionals burnt out and causing an acute mental health crisis amongst the workforce.

Colin Poolman director of the RCNS told delegates at Holyrood’s fringe event: “Every single one of us have normalised what’s happening in our hospitals and communities today, and that’s our frustration.  

“We have been talking about this for a long time about the crisis we’re in, and I find it really difficult, because I hear politicians on the radio saying we’re not in crisis. Read our report, we are in crisis, and we are in crisis across the entirety of health and social care. It’s not just the front door of hospitals. We are now hiding patients in hospitals, whether it’s cupboards or corridors, it’s unsafe and unfair on the staff.”