NHS Staffing Levels

Steven Bonnar Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Steven Bonnar (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (SNP)]

It is nice to see you in the chair this afternoon, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) on securing and leading this vital debate on NHS staffing levels. I also thank all Members who have made valuable contributions. I place on the record my thanks and admiration, and that of my party, for all those who work in our NHS in Scotland and in all social care settings.

We live in unprecedented times. We have endured the worst pandemic in living memory; we have witnessed the worst Prime Minister and Chancellor in living memory; we have an energy and cost of living crisis thanks to the invasion of Ukraine by the egomaniac Vladimir Putin and persistent public spending cuts that have crippled our economy; and we have the small matter, which very few dare to mention in this place, of the most horrific act of self-harm in living memory—Brexit. We in this place can dance around any fact we like, but the real reason for the staff shortages and real pressures in our NHS is Brexit. Because of all those combined factors, our greatest asset, the national health service, is under the greatest strain in its 74-year history across all the nations of the United Kingdom.

Consistently poor and, frankly, dumb economic choices undertaken by the Government have led to unprecedented inflation, limiting the Scottish Government’s ability to act in the areas in which they are required to do so due to the significant cuts to the Scottish budget. The previous Prime Minister’s catastrophic mini-Budget wiped £1.7 billion from the Scottish Government’s forthcoming budget in a matter of just a few days, dwarfing any increase announced recently by the newest Chancellor’s autumn statement. Scotland has been left with an additional £200 million shortfall and Scottish health spending power has been reduced by £650 million. Is that what we have to be thankful for? It is most certainly not our Union dividend or our Brexit bonus.

Together with the Welsh Health Minister, the Scottish Health Secretary Humza Yousaf recently wrote to the UK Government calling for the Chancellor to announce additional funding for this year in the NHS budget so that health boards and the devolved Governments can afford to pay the wages that our NHS staff so rightly deserve. Covid costs continue to eat into funding, despite the UK Government stopping covid funding altogether. The UK Government are pulling their usual stunt of giving with one hand while taking away with the other. Unless the Government take urgent action to immediately increase their budgetary spend, the NHS as we know will be in extreme peril.

A hard Tory Brexit—and one backed and endorsed by the Labour party, as the people of Scotland are fully aware—means that Scotland has endured the greatest depopulation of any of these island nations. As a result, we have a shortage in available workforce, as reported on page 3 of today’s Financial Times so illuminatingly. Scotland needs people to come in and bring their skills with them. We need a migration system that works for all of us and is fit for purpose. There is no other option if we are to fill the national labour shortages in our NHS and social care settings, as well as in other sectors that are in dire need of an eligible workforce—hospitality, transport, agriculture, fishing and many more. Again, Brexit is causing problems throughout every sector. The SNP’s position is that immigration powers must be devolved to Scotland and the Scottish Parliament. If the UK Government do not want to solve the problems effectively, if indeed at all, it is time to get out of the way and allow us to do so.

The Royal College of General Practitioners has found that more than 40% of GP trainees are international graduates. Forty-nine per cent. of that number have reported issues with the visa process and 17% are considering leaving the United Kingdom altogether and, as a result, taking their much-required skills elsewhere. That is talent that we should be nurturing and harnessing, but we are instead pushing it away and rejecting it. The UK Government have consistently hamstrung the NHS with their privatisation and red tape agendas, and now an immigration mess is adding to the chaos. Now we have different NHSs across the nations of the UK competing internally with one another to attract and retain staff in our healthcare settings. It is one sorry mess, and the architects of Brexit must shoulder the responsibility.

GP numbers were touched upon earlier, and there have been concerns about GP numbers in Scotland, as well as elsewhere across the United Kingdom. It is worth noting that Scotland has a record number of general practitioners working across our nation, with more GPs per head of population in Scotland than across the rest of the UK’s nations. The Scottish Government are committed to further increasing the number of GPs practising in Scotland by 800 by the end of 2027, investing £170 million each year for that purpose. We are making good progress on that commitment, with Scotland’s GP headcount increasing by 277 to 5,195 between 2017 and 2021.

The Scottish Government continue to look for ways to encourage staff into working for our world-renowned NHS service and will continue to work co-operatively with the UK Government wherever possible to encourage sufficient inbound migration to plug the labour shortages and support the full staffing of our national health service. Last week, the Chancellor announced that more than 600,000 people on universal credit will be asked to have a meeting with a work coach so that they can get the support they need to increase their hours or their earnings. Instead of sanctioning the poorest people in our communities and attacking workers’ rights by restricting trade unions, the UK Government must get real and focus on creating a fair and tailored immigration system that works for the people of Scotland and, indeed, the rest of the United Kingdom. However, it cannot be any clearer—other than to those who choose not to see—that the ramifications of Brexit are now beginning to bite in the very areas we knew they would, and we see nothing at all from this Government to suggest anything other than that the best future for Scotland’s NHS and for Scotland as a whole is one in which the representatives of the Scottish people directly decide on how best to safeguard all that we hold dear. That only comes with our country’s independence.

As I have a few wee minutes left, I will say to any hon. Members who represent English constituencies that the groundbreaking Pharmacy First service is excellent. It is working so well in Scotland, and I am glad that it will be rolled out across the rest of the UK. In Scotland, anybody under the age of 26 is now eligible for free NHS dental treatment. We have free annual eye tests for everybody in Scotland, and biannual tests for those over 65, free prescriptions for all, and free hormone replacement therapy and sanitary products. We are not getting it all right, but there is an ambition to get better, and we need the support of the UK Government to do so.