NHS 

• The National Health Service is our most cherished public service.  The SNP will never waiver in our belief that it must remain a publicly funded service that is available free of charge at the point of use; that is why we abolished prescription charges in Scotland in 2011, thereby ensuring that ill health is not taxed.  We remain committed to free prescriptions.  
  
• The SNP Scottish Government values junior doctors, nurses and our wider NHS workforce.  We have committed to enshrining safe NHS staffing levels in law.  
• SNP MPs will always vote to protect the health service in all parts of the UK from privatisation – as any moves to privatise the NHS in England could lead to the erosion of the budget that is available to Scotland.  The SNP will work on a cross-party basis to support attempts to return the NHS in England to its founding principles.
  
• ​We will never stop trying to make Scotland’s NHS healthier.  We all rely on our NHS, and that is why the SNP are committed to making sure it is fit for the future.

Health in Scotland is devolved, and getting health and social care right for people is a key element of the SNP Scottish Government’s health strategy.  On the Agenda for Change scale most NHS staff in Scotland earns more than their English counterparts.  This is because the Scottish Government accepted the recommendations of the independent NHS pay review; and the 1% pay-rise, coupled with the policy of ensuring NHS staff who earn less than £22,000 can receive a financial top-up to ensure their salary rises by at least £400, means that health workers in Scotland have the highest pay rates in the UK.  Despite substantial cuts in Scotland's budget from Westminster, the SNP Government will continue to give NHS staff in Scotland a better deal than in other parts of the UK.  

​The SNP Scottish Government are also completely committed to maintaining a nursing bursary and keeping nursing tuition free, which is in stark contrast to the Tory UK Government at Westminster who scrapped nursing bursaries for England in 2017 and replaced them with a loans-based funding model.  The Scottish Government understands that protecting free university tuition and the non-means tested, non-repayable, nursing and midwifery student bursary is incredibly important for the recruitment of future nurses.
 
Improving our NHS has been, and will remain, a key priority for the Scottish Government, which is why it has ensured the NHS revenue budget rises by £500 million more than inflation by 2021 - an increase of almost £2 billion in total.  My SNP colleagues, both in Westminster and Holyrood, will continue to ensure the NHS remains fit for purpose, improving standards for our nurses and the entire NHS workforce, as well as patients.  We know that good quality healthcare is the cornerstone to a decent society and we will always strive to provide this for Scotland.

Last year NHS Improvement reported that there were 36,000 vacancies in NHS England, and the policies of the Tory UK Government are only adding to this completely catastrophic situation.  While the Tories talk about the extra money that the NHS is investing it is baffling why they have not invested it in attracting people to study nursing as a degree.  Maintaining the bursary in Scotland meant that, instead of a 3% fall in the number of people starting studying, we saw a 9% rise; and a 10% increase in the number of people signing up for nursing places last year.  

In 2018 the Scottish First Minister announced an increase in nursing and midwifery bursaries, increasing to £10,000 in 2021.  This is part of a drive to continue the increase in numbers of student nurses that we have recently witnessed.  The Scottish Government also have discretionary funds for those nursing and midwifery students who are most in need, and it is raising the number of places for students of nursing and midwifery in the academic year 2019-20.  

Updated 30 January 2019