Desperate Gray rehashes old SNP failures in fifth NHS plan

Health Secretary vows to cut waiting times

- By David Walker Scottish Politics Reporter

NEIL GRAY has been branded "desperate" after he outlined a fifth NHS improvements plan in just four years.

The SNP Health Secretary was finally brought back into action yesterday after months of being sidelined by John Swinney.

But his launch of an "operational improvement plan for the NHS" was mocked after it included barely any new information.

The 21-page document mainly reiterated commitments made by the First Minister in his speech in January where he pledged that nobody will be waiting longer than one year by March 2026.

This is a rehash of an old SNP policy which failed, with the Scottish Government saying in mid-2022 it would end waits of more than a year in most specialties for out-patients by the end of March 2023.

Waits of longer than a year for in-patient and day cases were due to end by September 2024, but both these targets were missed.

Procedures

The latest plans included reducing waiting times for diagnostics by bringing in seven-day working for radiology, as well as mobile scanning units, to improve the availability of MRI, CT, ultrasound and endoscopy procedures to reduce the waiting list of less than six weeks by next March.