Yousaf has sent NHS waiting times ‘in wrong direction’, claims Ross

Humza Yousaf has been accused of sending NHS waiting times “in the wrong direction”, as it emerged more than 40,000 Scots have been waiting more than a year for an appointment.

Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross hit out at the First Minister, saying the NHS recovery plan published when Mr Yousaf was health secretary had pledged to abolish waits of this length for outpatient appointments by March 2023.

He highlighted a report by spending watchdogs at Audit Scotland on the state of the NHS he said had showed the number waiting a year or more for an outpatient appointment had risen from 3,594 in September 2019 to 40,052 by September 2023.

Mr Ross told the First Minister: “That shocking 11-fold increase in people waiting over a year is of course against a target which should be zero.”

Mr Yousaf accepted there is “still some way to go” as the NHS seeks to recover from the impact of the Covid pandemic.

But citing the Audit Scotland report – which the British Medical Association Scotland described as “staggeringly bleak” – Mr Ross challenged Mr Yousaf during First Minister’s Questions at Holyrood on Thursday.

“Humza Yousaf sent waiting times in the wrong direction,” the Tory leader said.

“Humza Yousaf has no vision for Scotland’s NHS.

“He has been asleep at the wheel like every other SNP first minster.

“There has been a lost decade of leadership in Scotland’s NHS. Ten years of stalling and delay has had dire consequences for patients.

“How long are people in Scotland going to have to wait for the SNP to get their act together?”

Mr Yousaf said: “I accept there is still a way to go. I accept of course the recommendations of the Audit Scotland report.”

He pledged not to “downplay the seriousness of the challenges the health service is facing as it recovers from what is undoubtedly the biggest shock of its 75-year existence, the global pandemic”.

He went on to attack the Tories, accusing them of having “taken a hatchet to our public services”.

He hit out at the 10% cut in the Scottish Government’s capital budget imposed by the Westminster Tory Government, with Holyrood ministers claiming this has forced them to pause work on new buildings for the NHS.

Mr Yousaf said: “I will take not a single lecture from Douglas Ross about investing in our NHS when his party is responsible for a 10% cut in our capital budget, which is deeply impacting our health infrastructure.

“Douglas Ross is presiding over a party that has taken a hatchet to our public services.”

He said the Scottish Government has committed a “record” £19.5 billion for health in its latest Budget.

The First Minister said: “This SNP Government will invest in our NHS, unlike Douglas Ross’s party, who are cutting the funding to the bone.

“When it comes to the challenges our NHS is facing, undoubtedly facing, I am not downplaying them. This Government is making sure that we invest in that recovery.

“The difference between the Tories and the SNP is we will invest in our NHS while the Conservatives are cutting it right down to the bone.”