Check against delivery

This Conference takes place on 60th anniversary of establishment of NHS.

Every year every conference we celebrate the creation of the NHS but this year we may be permitted to truly appreciate the significance of this what this achievement.

After the war, in a time of scarcity and shortages, with Britain facing monumental challenges and demands on their resources.

Labour and Nye Bevan in particular held on to the fundamental belief that a free health service was possible and could be delivered.

Driven by the harsh reality around him – 45 out of every thousand children died in infancy– he overcame the obstacles and the National Health Service Act was passed in 1948.

“No society can legitimately call itself civilized if a sick person is denied medical aid because of lack of means.”

Sixty years on the National Health Service remains one of the most important public services in the lives of our citizens

As William Blake said what is now proved was once only imagined-  it has touched every life and supported many in times of their greatest need.

As political debates have raged, the public commitment to free universal health care is undiminished.

So the National Health Service maintains its place in Labour’s heart.

Because we know it plays a central part in the Scotland’s health and we know that Scotland cannot succeed or prosper without good health of our people.

But of course it hasn’t been plain sailing through the sixty years and there have been real battles to protect and enhance the National health Service.

Remember the Tory years – starved of resources, bed blocking and winter crisis and waiting lists of 18 months or more.

Labour’s drive took the NHS forward through sustained investment and determination to enable the NHS to meet the demands of the 21st C.

Devolution gave us the opportunity to take the NHS to new levels and the achievements are real.

Year on year increases of resources available: in the last 5 years Labour increased health expenditure by 50%

Waiting times down from 18 months to 18 weeks
 
Deaths from heart disease  down by 30%

And with a new emphasis on prevention and an investment in community services, these days it won’t just be surgeon who saves your life, it will be the paramedic who administers emergency treatment on the spot, or the primary care worker who spotted your high cholesterol, or the teacher who gives your children the basics of a healthy diet.

This was the mark of Scotland – improved services for all but a focus on those who needed it most.

Shaking off our image as the sickest in Europe to being the first in the UK to introduce the smoking ban

With free fruit in nurseries and healthy eating in schools from groundbreaking legislation on mental health to investing in the health of homeless people.

Labour knew that improving the nation’s health required wider and deeper action.

Labour knew and understood that good health needs good housing

Good health needs to be assisted by good education

Good health requires full employment and shared prosperity

Good health requires opportunity and an end to poverty

For sixty years health has remained one of Labour’s central priorities

Year on year when Labour in Scotland found the resources to invest in health - in fact in Scotland we were ahead of the UK in terms of health spend.

Now with the SNP we are falling behind.

But what of the SNP – and it is galling to see them taking the credit for many of our achievements – but their true colours are beginning to show.

When Labour was in power we increased health spend by 7% on average every year.

With the SNP the real term increase is half that.

And there are real costs and real consequences

Don’t let anyone tell you it doesn’t matter how much you spend

Its gameplan politics and this is how it works.

First you make lots of promises in your manifesto knowing full well the moneys not there for them all.

You drop some of them quickly – early on when no one will notice then prise open some arguments with Westminster – blame them for as much and as fast as you can.

The NHS is just too important for this kind of politics – our services and our resources are not the political plaything of the SNP,  and the reality is now beginning to show.

Key health investments, like the two health Centres and minor injuries units in Lanark and Kilsyth delayed and cancelled. 

Cuts by the backdoor to the most vulnerable by SNP/Lib Dem run councils.  Cuts that will cost our NHS dear in the long run.

The Health Secretary turns a blind eye to those least able to get noticed by her friends in the media.

Charges for caring services going through the roof  in Fife.

Cuts in the voluntary sector with child care lost in Edinburgh. Services to disabled people in Aberdeen.

From the student nurses who will pay more income tax with the SNP to the pretence of the so called Futures Trust mocked by Unison and criticised by a range of professional organisations.

Our job in opposition is to give voice to whom the SNP won’t listen – such as those that attended a public meeting in Clydebank organised by Des McNulty.

You like to intervene Nicola, when it suits you – intervene now to save this hospice provision.

Look at the mess she has created with hospital car parking charges – with mayhem in her own constituency.

It’s time to end this mess and make hospital car parking free.

Surely it is not beyond our grasp to prioritise the wellbeing of patients, visitors and staff.

These charges hurt the wrong people – cancer patients, disabled patients, parents trying to see their sick children – and they must stop.

So -

Yes we will stop the SNP playing fast and loose with the NHS, but we must never lose our edge in developing the policies that the NHS needs to grow and develop in the 21st century

From obesity to long term conditions, we need to face the magnitude of these problems, and we do that best by our determination to listen to the people of Scotland so that their concerns become our priorities.

We know that individuals and families throughout Scotland are faced with tough choices, from the family budget, to the education of children, worries about elderly relatives and the health and welfare of their families.

We must recognise that the parameters of the debate on health care are changing and we must ensure we embrace the radical thinking that spurred Labour to create the NHS and spurred Labour through the generations.

As we drive our policy forward we will seek to engage in fresh thinking about improving the health and wellbeing of the people in Scotland and we will use our position in parliament to push this agenda.

1. We want to ensure elderly people have real options and we develop new and innovative forms of care.
2. We want to develop a personalised care plan for everyone with a chronic condition.  It will mean every patient with a chronic condition has an appropriate care plan which maximises their involvement with their own care and should go beyond health to address their whole needs. These plans should not simply be health plans, but should address the whole needs of the individual.   
3. We need to ensure our services are accountable and sensitive to the needs of the people they serve.
4. And finally, health inequality remains one of our great challenges.

While we have made great strides forward there is still so much more to do.

Now we have to make the next big step - let it be the hallmark of Labour today – everyone has an equal right to good health and an equal right to a healthy life.

We need an NHS that is at its best where it is needed most.

It cannot be acceptable that you are likely to die ten or more years earlier because you were born in the wrong postcode

It cannot be acceptable that the poorer you are the more likely you are to have cancer or heart disease

It cannot be acceptable that nearly twice as many children in poor families fall ill or die in infancy than children from better off areas.

This is not the priority of the SNP – the relentless drive against inequality is not safe in their hands.

For Labour, constitutional issues remain a means to an end.  To the attainment of good health for all, better housing, better care services for the elderly.

But for the SNP constitutional issues are the end.  And good health, better housing, and better care services are pawns in their political game of perpetual disputes.

But we in opposition will not be diverted by their tactics. 

We will be there in opposition for the NHS now, just as we were during the years of Tory rule. 

We will fight to save the NHS for backdoor drip-drip-drip cuts from Salmond & Sturgeon.

So the Scottish Labour Party has reflected and is listening. We will galvanise our energies to tackle the SNP and ensure Scotland …….

Social justice not separation.

Investment and Reform not cuts and conflict.