Last week, I raised the case of Robert, a retired policeman from Lanarkshire, who spent five and a half hours on the floor in accident and emergency before being given morphine and a bed. The First Minister apologised but, as usual, he then used hard-working national health service staff as his political shield.

Today, the Royal College of Nursing has published a damning report that lays bare the impact that the crisis has on NHS patients and staff. One nurse said:

“I deliver care in inappropriate settings every single day all day. It deprives the patient of privacy and dignity, it forces us to go against our codes and training.”

That is shameful. Last week, John Swinney apologised to patients, and he has just done that again today. Will he now apologise to the NHS staff that he and his Scottish National Party Government are failing every day?

One key point that I have tried to stress in all my answers to Parliament on this question is the importance of ensuring that I address as they are the circumstances that we face in our hospital system. That is one reason why I went to the emergency department at Edinburgh royal infirmary on 4 January to see with my own eyes the pressure that was being recounted to me by health service leaders over a number of weeks when I was engaged in trying to address the situation.

I think that, throughout the United Kingdom, ministers all accept the pressures that are on the national health service because of winter circumstances. I have recounted to Parliament the enormous increase in flu cases and I will put those numbers on the parliamentary record. Hospital admissions almost doubled from 708 in the week ending 15 December to 1,382 in the week ending 22 December, and they increased further to 1,596 in the week ending 29 December, which is when the RCN survey was undertaken.

I acknowledge the reality of the pressures—the intense pressures—on the national health service. We have increased staff and consultant numbers and have expanded the capacity of NHS 24, as a review of urgent care called on us to do back in 2020. The Government will continue taking all the necessary steps to ensure that our staff are as well supported as they can be in dealing with the intense pressures that prevail within the national health service in winter.

John Swinney wants to pretend that we have only a winter crisis in the NHS; the reality is that we have a permanent crisis in the NHS on John Swinney’s watch.

The RCN report details the human cost of John Swinney and Neil Gray’s incompetence. Nurses are delivering care in overcrowded or unsuitable places such as corridors, cupboards and even car parks every day. Staff are caring for multiple patients in a single corridor, where they are unable to access oxygen, cardiac monitors and other life-saving equipment. Patients are going into cardiac arrest while in corridors, incontinent patients are left with no privacy and almost 90 per cent of nurses say that patient safety is being compromised. Nurses describe flu patients waiting in corridors next to vulnerable patients and having to discuss miscarriages with couples in overcrowded corridors.

One nurse said:

“I worked throughout Covid-19 and although was a horrendous experience this lack of care in the broken system is worse.”

Is that not the deadly reality of the NHS on John Swinney and the SNP’s watch?

No, it is not. What we are doing is focusing, within the resources available to us, on maximising the effectiveness of patient care for individuals.

What has the Government done in recent years? The Government has, for example, increased NHS staffing by 26.6 per cent during the period in which we have been in office. Regarding the central point in Mr Sarwar’s last question, the Government has increased staffing numbers. We have increased consultant numbers, particularly in emergency care, and we have also increased the capacity of NHS 24. We have introduced innovations, such as hospital at home, to ensure that more patients are treated in the circumstances that best meet their needs.

The Government will continue to innovate and reform to address the public’s needs, but there is a harsh reality about the increased demand that we are facing as a consequence of the upsurge in flu cases and the implications of Covid, which has left the population facing more acute health circumstances than pre-Covid. The Government is prioritising the national health service by ensuring that we are investing the largest sum of money ever in it. I look forward to the Government’s budget passing to enable us to secure that investment for the people of this country.

The RCN in Scotland said this morning that this is

“a wake-up call for the Scottish Government”,

but it is clear from John Swinney’s answers that he is asleep at the wheel, which is why we need a change of direction in this country. He denies reality, so will he listen to what Scottish nurses are saying? One said:

“It is demoralising, frustrating and embarrassing. It feels like patients are a number not a patient.”

Another Scottish nurse said:

“It’s degrading and unsafe as these locations are not designed or intended for patient care and offer little or no privacy.”

Another Scottish nurse said:

“I have had to give IV antibiotics on a chair beside the nurses station to someone septic.”

Another Scottish nurse said:

“I am now in the process of leaving the NHS ... it is fraying at the seams and has left me with mental health problems and trauma.”

That is the damning and sad reality of our NHS under the SNP. Is it not a clear sign that John Swinney and this SNP Government cannot fix the mess that they made, and that we need a new direction in our country?

I hear the slogan from Anas Sarwar every week, but I point out to Parliament that there was not a single word of substance to back up his rhetoric about a new direction. The last word that Anas Sarwar used was “change”. He has argued that a Labour Government in London would change the circumstances for people in this country. [ Interruption .]

Members, let us hear one another.

A Labour Government did not change the circumstances for the WASPI women—women against state pension inequality—in this country, who have been betrayed by the Labour Party in the United Kingdom. When the Secretary of State for Scotland was in Parliament yesterday, he told us that the people could not cope with the honesty of the Labour Government. I think that, on the basis of the past few months, people in Scotland are waking up to the fundamental dishonesty of the Labour Party, and Mr Sarwar epitomises it.