Local constituency MSP Finlay Carson has launched a scathing attack over the Scottish Government’s latest health and social care reform plans.
He warned that the plans announced by Health Secretary Neil Gray would do little to help communities in Dumfries and Galloway where local health services continue to crumble.
Speaking at Holyrood, Mr Carson insisted: “After a decade of promises, delays and spiralling crisis in our health and social care system, the Scottish Government has announced five principles of reform.
“What they have presented is a document that, frankly, reads more like a school project on preventative health than a serious strategy from a government in power for 17 years.
“With no disrespect to an 11-year-old, even they could have told us that prevention is better than cure.”
The Scottish Conservative and Unionist MSP said it had taken the SNP Government the best part of ten years to produce a glossy framework full of vague aspirations and recycled rhetoric.
He warned the local health board is being forced to make £30 million in cuts and £19 million from mental health services – a decision that will move us even further away from the long-promised target of 10 per cent of NHS spending on mental health.
Mr Carson told MSPs: “Specifically in respect of the SNP’s five principles that will shape the future of care in Scotland, the closure of maternity services in Stranraer does not exactly align with the second principle of People – designing care around individuals and empowering them in their care decisions.
“And how can the Scottish Government possibly claim to be delivering on the third principle of its own Renewable Framework – Community. Especially when in Dumfries and Galloway we are witnessing the closure of local hospitals, the erosion of community-based services and whole withdrawal of vital care infrastructure.”
He argued it had also fallen short on the fourth principle of Population – planning services based on local needs – saying: “Given the needs of rural families in Dumfries and Galloway are being ignored entirely, cottage hospital have been closed, maternity unit shutdown with mothers-to-be forced to travel 75 miles to give birth, no hospice provision and the number of care home beds woefully inadequate.”
