Damning report on state of NHS shows why Scotland needs Labour to fix it

It might sound like today, but this was actually January 2000, when the real millennium bug turned out to be a flu outbreak that threatened to take down the NHS.

This medical history was cited by Mike McKirdy, the former president of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons in Glasgow, as he introduced his report on the state of Scotland’s NHS.

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Patients turning to private healthcare

An independent investigation commissioned by Scottish Labour, it offers a diagnosis of the deterioration patients are experiencing on a day-to-day basis, whether languishing on waiting lists or in hospital corridors while trying to get seen at A&E.

It makes for damning reading. Since 2007, more than 130 major health strategies have been published – the equivalent of one every seven weeks – yet this is not translating to delivery on the ground.

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The median wait time for an NHS 24 call to be answered increased from nine seconds in 2014/15 to over five minutes in 2019/20. In 2024/25, it was 22.5 minutes.

Diagnostic waiting times continue to climb, and as pressures intensify, more patients are turning to private healthcare – since 2019/20, private admissions have increased by 55 per cent, effectively creating a two-tier healthcare system.

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Tinkering around the edges

Against this backdrop, it’s no surprise that NHS staff are voting with their feet. Worryingly, half of those quitting are under 55.

The SNP government likes to blame the pandemic for the health service’s current woes, but the McKirdy Report found that Covid “exposed and enhanced” existing weaknesses. Nor is it just a case of funding.

While the UK Labour government has ended austerity and delivered an extra £10.3 billion for Scotland since 2024, McKirdy’s key critique is that the Scottish Government has opted for tinkering round the edges rather than deep structural reform.

As Mr McKirdy put it, “it doesn’t matter if the money comes in suitcases-full, or trains-full, or juggernauts-full, it’s how you spend it”.

Hope for the future

Familiar though it sounds, he cited the 2000 flu outbreak because it contains a kernel of hope. To the hospital staff on shift that January, it seemed like the NHS might collapse. But it survived – and lessons were learned.

The then Scottish Labour-led Scottish Government invested in winter planning, older and more vulnerable Scots were offered winter flu vaccines and data was used to monitor the pressures on the NHS.

The diagnosis might have been challenging, but it was followed by treatment. We can do the same today. Over the next five months, Scottish Labour will set out how we plan to fix our NHS.

That includes shifting the focus to primary care, investing in the equipment that will speed up diagnoses and tapping into staff talent rather than grinding them down.

We can make the McKirdy Report the first chapter in a hopeful story – and make this the last winter the SNP is in charge of our NHS.

Jackie Baillie is MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour’s deputy leader and her party’s spokesperson for health