13 facts about the health service under the SNP

We all rely on our NHS – that’s why we want to make sure it’s fit for the future. Under the SNP health funding, NHS staffing and patient satisfaction are all at record highs.

Here’s how, in government, we’re delivering progress on health.

Health spending is at a record high – over £13.1 billion this year. Over this Scottish Parliament term we have committed to increasing the NHS revenue budget by half a billion higher than inflation.

NHS Scotland patient satisfaction is at its highest level on record. Patient satisfaction continues to increase with 90 per cent of NHS Scotland patients rating their care and treatment as good or excellent.

The number of people working in our health service has increased to a record high. Under the SNP, NHS Scotland staffing has increased by 13,200 or 10.4 per cent.

Scotland’s hospital A&E performance has been the best in the UK for the past three years. Our core accident and emergency performance has remained better than elsewhere in the UK for the last three years of published data, from March 2015 to January 2018.

Scotland has the highest number of GPs per 100,000 population of any UK nation, and we will aim to increase the number of GPs in Scotland by at least 800 over the next decade. We’re also introducing a new GP contract to make general practice an even more attractive career prospect for doctors.

Free prescriptions – introduced by the SNP government – are saving people with chronic conditions over £100 a year.

Pay rises for NHS staff have been delivered and we are now lifting the public sector pay cap too. We are guaranteeing a minimum increase of 3 per cent for staff who earn up to £36,500, meaning that a Band 5 nurse will receive a pay rise of £870 in 2018-19.

We will invest an extra half a billion pounds into primary care, including GP services and health centres. Over this parliament, we will increase spending on primary care services to 11 per cent of the frontline NHS budget.

Since the SNP came to office the number of people registered with an NHS dentist has almost doubled. And 96 per cent of adults from Scotland’s most deprived communities are registered with an NHS dentist.

In the last ten years cancer mortality is down 11 per cent. And, our new Cancer Strategy, backed up by £100 million in funding, will improve prevention, early diagnosis and treatment of cancer.

Scotland was the first country in the world to implement a national patient safety programme, and hospital safety is improving. Figures published show that between January to March 2014 and July to September 2017, hospital mortality has fallen by 10.6 per cent.

Scotland was the first country in the UK to have a mental health waiting times target. Spending on mental health services in Scotland will broke the £1 billion mark this year and, we’ve published a new ten-year strategy to transform mental health services too.

We’ve expanded access to IVF so that it is now the most generous in the UK. From 1 April 2017, new patients referred for IVF treatment on the NHS in Scotland may be eligible for three full cycles rather than two, increasing their chances of conceiving a baby. Families who have children in the home but where one parent has no biological children are now be eligible too.