SCOTTISH SOCIALISTS CONDEMN NHS WHITE PAPER AS "REARRANGING THE DECKCHAIRS"

The Scottish Socialist Party today condemned the new Executive White Paper on Health “as merely rearranging the deckchairs” instead of addressing the crisis in health care in Scotland.

SSP Spokesperson Carolyn Leckie, who is leader of Glasgow’s hospital workers and as No. 1 for the SSP in Central Region likely to be an MSP after the election, said:

“For a paper which is supposed to transform Scotland’s health services, this is a deeply disappointing document. Of course we welcome the abolition of NHS trusts but we ask, who is going to manage and control the health service at local level? The NHS boards, it is clear, will only deal with strategy and policy and there is a real issue of accountability and democratic control over our health services.

Could it be that Malcolm Chisholm is trying to slip in foundation hospitals through the back door? The real crisis in the NHS is lack of money, lack of staff and lack of beds. This White Paper does nothing to address the real crisis in the NHS, it is simply rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic of the NHS.”
[ENDS]
For more information, contact Carolyn Leckie on 07799 642929
or Hugh Kerr on 0131 348 5631/07713 063647