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FMQs: SNP must cut £850 million ‘back-office bureaucracy’ and invest in NHS frontline

The Scottish Conservatives have said the SNP should cut NHS waiting lists by reducing the £850 million spent on healthcare bureaucracy and instead invest in more nurses and doctors.

At First Minister’s Questions, Russell Findlay criticised John Swinney’s “rehashed and recycled” promises on the NHS.

The Scottish Conservative leader also slammed the “bloated bureaucracy” in the SNP-run NHS and the amount being spent on “back-office staff”, rather than frontline NHS workers.

Findlay said “the SNP has kept Scotland’s NHS trapped in the analogue age” by taking years to deliver an app for patients, which was originally announced in 2021.

He added the SNP had failed to create a promised network of National Treatment Centres, which was first promised back in 2015.

After John Swinney’s speech on the NHS earlier this week, Dr Iain Kennedy, a GP and chairman of the BMA Scottish Council, said: “We still lack the detail and comprehensive vision needed to make any plan a reality.”

Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay said: “We told the SNP that Humza Yousaf’s NHS recovery plan would not help patients way back in 2021, but only now is it in the bin.

“All these years have been wasted while patients suffered and John Swinney insisted everything that was going great.

“In a classic case of government by press release, all that matters to John Swinney is an easy headline with no interest in the difficult job of delivery. It was little wonder he was faced with howls of laughter when he tried to accuse anyone else of being high on rhetoric and low on delivery.

“John Swinney has the audacity to announce the same recycled promises that the SNP have already failed to deliver, but still with absolutely no credible explanation about how any of it will actually be achieved.

“The SNP has kept Scotland’s NHS trapped in the analogue age by failing to deliver an app that patients south of the border have had for years.

“We need a new health secretary who will be focused on the job. Projects in press releases must be delivered. Taxpayers’ money should be spent more effectively.

“Right now, across Scotland’s health service, over £850 million is being spent on back office departments and corporate functions, not frontline medical services.

“If the SNP cut this bloated bureaucracy, and kept their countless promises, waiting lists can come down.

“Money would be far better spent on nurses and doctors than back-office staff.”

Notes

Scotland’s Health and Social Care bodies spend £853 million on backroom corporate functions. The Scottish Government published data which shows that health bodies spend more on these functions than the rest of the Scotland’s public bodies combined. (Scottish Government, 28 November 2024, link).

The SNP Manifesto in 2021 promised an NHS app. The manifesto said: ‘Develop MyNHS, a safe, simple and secure app that will help people access services directly and own their own health information.’ (SNP Manifesto, April 2021, link).

Nicola Sturgeon announced the establishment of treatment centres at the SNP’s 2015 conference. Sturgeon said: ‘I can announce today that over the next parliament, we will invest £200 million to create a new network of elective treatment centres.’ (SNP Conference, 17 October 2015, link).

Six National Treatment Centres have either not been delivered or are on hold. (Scottish Express, 10 December 2024, link).