6. To ask the First Minister what steps the Scottish Government is taking to address workforce issues in the NHS. (S5F-00580)

We appreciate the achievements of all our NHS Scotland staff in delivering safe, high-quality health and care services day in and day out to the people of Scotland. Staffing has increased to historically high levels, with more than 11,000 additional staff since the Government took office, including more than 2,000 more qualified nurses and midwives and more than 1,500 more consultants. We are also producing a national health and social care workforce plan to discuss with staff how we ensure the right numbers and mix of skills across acute and community health services. The plan builds on the creation of our nursing and midwifery workload and workforce planning tools, which have helped to drive increases in the nursing establishment.

Despite the First Minister’s warm words, after 10 years of this Government, the reality is very different. Under this Government and this Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport, nine out of 10 nurses say that their workload is getting worse and one in three nurses say that there are not enough of them to do their jobs properly. There has been a failure to plan the workforce properly. Nursing vacancies are up; midwifery vacancies are up; general practitioner vacancies are up; consultant vacancies are up; waiting times are up; the number of failed standards are up; and private spend is up, too. When will the First Minister wake up, take responsibility and act for our NHS?

The First Minister:

Anas Sarwar may like to ignore the fact, or pretend that it does not exist, that 11,000 more people—including more than 2,000 extra nurses—are working in our NHS now than there were when this Government took office. Record numbers of staff are working in our health service.

Yes, those staff are working hard, and they work under pressure because of the rising demand for health services, which is largely due to the ageing population. That is why we are not saying, “Job done.” We are continuing to invest more and more in our health service, so that we can employ more staff and reform services in order to build up social care, primary care and mental health services in the community and take the pressure off our acute services.

A lot of work has still to be done on that—I would not say otherwise. However, our health service is performing well. It is performing better on many key indicators than health services in any other part of the United Kingdom, so let us get behind those who work in our health services, get behind the Government’s investment plans and get behind the Government’s reform plans. Every time that we bring forward a proposal for reform, Anas Sarwar and his colleagues oppose it. Labour has no ideas. The level of funding that it promised is the lowest of all the parties and it is completely bereft of any positive contribution to the debate. As long as that remains the case, we will get on with doing the hard work for Scotland’s patients.