Anas Sarwar has today unveiled a recovery plan for Scotland’s NHS following the devastating impact of the pandemic. Speaking at the launch of his party’s election campaign, Mr Sarwar published proposals to get cancer treatment back on track, improve mental health care, and give carers the pay they deserve.
Scottish Labour’s election campaign will focus on a ‘National Recovery Plan’ with five themes: a jobs recovery; an NHS recovery; an education recovery; a climate recovery; and a communities recovery. An education comeback plan has already been published, and this is the second element of the national recovery plan.
The blueprint includes a catch-up plan for cancer screenings by increasing staff and processing capacity to clear the backlog of appointments within a year, highlighting there are 7,000 missing cancer diagnoses as a result of Covid.
Saying that restoring the NHS must be the priority for the next parliament, not ‘settling old scores’, Anas Sarwar added:
“Covid has reminded us of the value of our NHS, but the past year has not come without a cost. Waiting times have soared, there are missing cancer patients, a growing mental health crisis, and an exhausted workforce.
Restoring the NHS and Scotland’s health will be key to Scotland’s recovery, and we can’t go back to the old way of doing things. This plan offers solutions to ensure we can restore our NHS and that is what this election is about – solutions for the future; not the arguments of the past.
Better public services; not settling old scores. A national recovery plan to unite our country; not an obsession with what divides us.
After the last few days, it’s clear that only Scottish Labour is focused on what unites us so that together we can build a stronger recovery for a fairer Scotland.”
Good policy to start the election campaign. No one will disagree with making NHS recovery and catching up on cancer screening top priorities for the next government. All the parties want to see our country recover from this pandemic and, of course, so do all voters.