South Scotland MSP Colin Smyth has slammed the Scottish Government’s record on health and social care during a debate on NHS waiting lists in the Scottish Parliament.

The local MSP raised the many issues being felt by constituents across the south of Scotland, including the huge issues around delayed discharge.

Speaking in the debating chamber, Colin Smyth said: “A day rarely goes by when constituents do not share heartbreaking stories that show just how broken NHS services are.

“Constituents are being placed in care homes from hospital to fiddle the delayed discharge figures.

“Often, they are there for months and are miles from their families, waiting to go home, where they should be. Operations are routinely cancelled because beds are unnecessarily full due to delayed discharge.

“Here is another one. Nine years ago, the SNP pledged to eradicate delayed discharge within a year. Today, delayed discharge has spiralled out of control and has drained £1.2 billion from our NHS over the past decade.

“In Dumfries and Galloway alone, between 2015 and 2023, the bill for it was a staggering £40 million, which is money that we could have used to pay carers a proper wage.”

Colin Smyth continued: “No service or constituent in my region has been left untouched by the crisis that is engulfing health and social care.

“Care homes have closed, community hospitals have closed, GP surgeries have closed and dentists have closed.

“Indeed, more than 20,000 patients in Dumfries and Galloway alone have been de-registered from the NHS recently. People cannot register with an NHS dentist in that region; there is no waiting list because there is nobody to register with in order to join a waiting list.

“We have heard increasing concerns that the NHS is unsustainable in its current form, but the reality is that it is this Scottish Government’s negligence that is unsustainable.

“We need a long-term plan to tackle the low level of sheltered housing and the loss of care homes locally, and we need the Government to pay our care workers properly.”