The Labour Party created the NHS and we care more about it than anyone else. You only have to look at our record to see the evidence of this. In England, health spending is rising by 6.7 per cent year-on-year. Here the SNP have given the health service its worst financial settlement since devolution.

In Scotland, Jackie Baillie is the Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing. Dr Richard Simpson speaks on public health.

The SNP’s cuts are being felt in every part of Scotland. Managers at NHS Highland say that in order to save money they are considering options once regarded as "scary and untouchable". In Edinburgh, nurses have complained of potentially dangerous staffing levels due to cost cutting. NHS Shetland has even been forced to review its cancer care services.

Scottish Labour's first priority is to defend the NHS. Scots deserve the best health service in the world and they are not getting it from the SNP.

At the most basic level, families have the right to know that when someone they love goes into hospital they will be treated in clean and safe conditions. Nicola Sturgeon has adopted a complacent and piece meal approach to hospital acquired infections, such as C. difficile.

With Labour, the NHS in England has succeeded in reducing the number of C. difficile cases by 38 per cent. In Scotland, the government ignored warnings from their own officials about the need for new surveillance guidelines and it is still rising.

We have worked with independent experts to put forward a comprehensive action plan to beat the superbugs. Labour’s proposals have won cross-party support in the Scottish Parliament and Professor Hugh Pennington has told us that they would save thousands of lives. Scottish Labour has also fully supported the campaign, led by the families, for a public inquiry into the C. difficile outbreak at the Vale of Leven, in which 18 people died. We will continue to fight for them until they get the answers they deserve.

Labour created the NHS, supported it, defended it, and improved it – but now we have a new task. Our mission must be nothing less than to eradicate preventable disease in Scotland.
        
Promoting public health cannot be divorced from jobs, education, housing and our environment. Tackling inequalities in health is vital to improving wellbeing.
    
Improving Scotland’s health is also about improving access to sport, housing and education. We need to give people the opportunity to take responsibility for their own wellbeing.

In particular, it is absolutely essential that children are not denied the opportunity to take part in sport because of the recession. That’s why Labour believes that children under-16 should be allowed free access to council swimming pools.

The SNP also promised free swimming for children in their last manifesto, but they have done nothing to make it happen. Of Scotland's 32 councils, only Labour-run Glasgow and Inverclyde are delivering this pledge.

We have also launched a campaign for children to be given free access to football matches in Scotland. Our proposals have won growing support from former players like Scotland internationalist Gary Mackay, who rightly points out that “supporters are the lifeblood of
the game”.

Our ambition is to provide children and young people with access to sport and positive role models, whatever their family's financial circumstances. If we can get youngsters playing sport and watching sport we will succeed in our ambition to make each new generation healthier than the last. This would also be the best possible legacy for the 2014 Commonwealth Games.