00:00In a hundred days' time, Scotland faces a choice, the most significant choice it's had to make in 20 years.
00:09And in a hundred days' time, we can save our most precious and treasured National Health Service.
00:15A hundred days to take our country in a different direction, and a hundred days to give hope back to the people of this great country.
00:24We have a plan to fix our NHS and make it fit for the future.
00:28But above all else, we want to take our NHS out of the hands of incompetent ministers and bureaucrats and managers and put it back in the hands of the people it truly belongs to.
00:42The patients, the doctors and the nurses.
00:45This election won't decide what happens somewhere else, it'll decide what happens here in Scotland.
00:52It'll decide what happens to our schools, our hospitals, our GP services, our social care system, our families, our communities, our towns, our cities, our villages and our islands.
01:04This election is about our NHS.
01:07And for any other political party or any other political leader, including the sitting First Minister John Swinney and the SNP,
01:15they want to make this election about everything but Scotland, but I am determined to make it about Scotland.
01:21And who can blame them for wanting to talk about anything else apart from their record?
01:26On their watch, more than 830,000 Scots waiting either for treatment or for diagnosis.
01:33Including almost 10,000 waiting over two years.
01:37Over two years on an NHS waiting list.
01:40That's 53 times higher than the number in England, despite them having 10 times the size of population we do.
01:49It means for all those thousands of people who wait far too long at A&E and when the Royal College of Emergency Medicine tell us
01:56that that leads to unnecessary deaths in the future.
02:01To all those people that are stuck in hospital, desperate to get out, cleared to leave, but can't.
02:06Because they can't access that care package either at home or indeed in a care home.
02:12For all those who have had to remortgage their homes, borrow from friends and family,
02:16or have had to travel elsewhere to get the private diagnosis or the private treatment
02:20when they should be getting that here at home.
02:24Those waiting in pain, in anxiety and putting their lives on hold.
02:29And all the personal consequence that has on their health, but also on their economic opportunity
02:34and indeed on their friends and family.
02:37That's the record of shame for the SNP.
02:40That's the record of failure.
02:42And that's one that we want to stop and take our NHS into the future.
02:47Now people often say that all hope has gone.
02:50The NHS can never be fixed.
02:52It's always going to be broken.
02:53It can't go back to those founding principles.
02:56I reject that out of hand.
02:58Our NHS can work.
03:00Our NHS can be fit for the future.
03:03Our NHS can deliver for everyone the way it should.
03:06But what we need is a government that meets the ambition of the people
03:10and works as hard as our NHS staff do if we are to make it a reality.
03:15So what will Scottish Labour do to fix it?
03:18First, we will declare that national waiting times emergency
03:21to make sure patients can receive the care they need
03:24regardless of where it is available across the country.
03:28We will also make sure we take capacity wherever it exists
03:31so we can clear those backlogs
03:33and so people don't have to use their own money to get the treatment they need.
03:38We will reform primary care to end the ATM rush for a GP appointment
03:42and we will bring back the family doctor.
03:45We will end corridor care and stop all the bed blocking
03:49by making sure we invest in social care and the pathways that people need
03:53to get those care packages at home or indeed to have that place in a care home.
03:58We will also bring parity in terms of mental health and physical health
04:02by launching the Mental Health Emergency Response Service
04:06making sure there are trained paramedics, nurses and mental health support
04:10responding directly to 999 calls, not untrained police officers.
04:16Now that does two things.
04:17One, of course, it gives better dignity and care to the patient
04:20but it also releases those police officers
04:22so they're not stuck in AD departments, they're not stuck in courtrooms,
04:26they're not stuck responding to 999 calls.
04:29Instead, they're on the front line supporting their communities and fighting crime.
04:33And ultimately, we will cut the bureaucracy
04:36so we've got fewer chief executives, fewer finance directors,
04:40fewer managers and more nurses and more doctors on the front line.
04:45fewer bureaucrats who think their job is to stand up and defend the government
04:49and conspire against the patient
04:51and more money to the doctors and the nurses that treat the patients
04:55and better outcomes for people across the country.
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