Lucy Dunn

Independence was the main focus at the first hustings of the SNP leadership race last night. Humza Yousaf called for a slower route to separation. Ash Regan clarified the workings of her ‘voter empowerment mechanism’. But Kate Forbes unveiled a more radical approach: announcing she would fight for another independence referendum within three months of

Kate Forbes has finally managed to shake off questions about equal marriage. The SNP leadership contender has been busy instead talking about Scotland’s crumbling health service – and how she’d fix it. It’s looking like Forbes, if successful, will scrap the Sturgeon-Yousaf National Care Service, back an independent inquiry into Scotland’s healthcare system and enter

Is Ash Regan the dark horse in the SNP leadership race? Kate Forbes and Humza Yousaf are the frontrunners, yet in a race full of surprises, Regan’s chances should not be ruled out. The 48-year-old MSP for Edinburgh Eastern resigned in protest over gender self ID. Now she has returned as the candidate for change

Humza Yousaf has been described as the ‘continuity candidate’ in the SNP leadership race. Yousaf remains the bookies’ favourite and has managed to avoided the media storm that his rival Kate Forbes has faced following her comments about gay marriage. But Yousaf’s own record in politics deserves some scrutiny. So how has the Scottish health

Kate Forbes’s religious views have sparked a backlash among her SNP colleagues. The party leadership contender’s announcement that she would not have supported gay marriage ‘as a matter of conscience’, led to four of her MSP colleagues distancing themselves from Forbes. And there could be more departures yet: earlier today, Forbes also let slip that

Next month, junior doctors in England will walk out for three consecutive days after an overwhelming majority voted to strike over pay and conditions. Just under 50,000 doctors were entitled to vote in the British Medical Association ballot, and 78 per cent did. Of the votes cast, 98 per cent voted in favour of strike

The NHS in Scotland is under enormous strain. Three health boards north of the border have stopped non-urgent elective care as the crisis worsens. Urgent treatment and cancer care is being prioritised as patient demand continues to rise past unmanageable levels. The last time we saw this happening was during the pandemic. What’s going so

Quit your job, leave the country, move to Australia. This may once have sounded like a hastily-planned midlife crisis, but in 2023 these life plans are more representative of doctors’ across the country. Four in ten junior doctors plan to leave the NHS as soon as they can find another job, a survey by the

The NHS is facing an existential crisis, the shadow health secretary Wes Streeting said last week. The health service needs to ‘reform or die’. Cue the backlash. How do we keep medical students in the UK without inadvertently funding doctors for other countries?  Sam Tarry, the recently-deselected Labour MP, expressed ‘dismay’ over his colleague’s comments

Finally, good news on the strike front: NHS staff in Scotland have decided against walking out after voting to accept an improved pay offer from the Scottish government. The deal means healthcare workers will get pay rises ranging from £2,205 to £2,751. But this isn’t an offer to end all strike threats yet – nurses

Workers are balloting for industrial action, attending mass demonstrations and preparing to strike. A ferocious tug-o’-war between trade unions and employers is playing out across the country. Though striking RMT members have been accused of ‘ruining Christmas’, the country’s greatest fears should be reserved for the NHS, which will see ambulance workers and nurses walk

As of today, nine children have died in the UK after falling ill with Strep A. Now, more children under ten have lost their lives from severe infection caused by invasive Strep A (sometimes abbreviated to iGAS) than did from Covid in the first three months of the pandemic in 2020. In most cases, Group

The NHS is facing its own winter of discontent: A&E waiting times are surging, GP availability is plunging and a strike is brewing. The Communication Workers’ Union (CWU), says Britain is facing a ‘de facto general strike’: from nurses to ambulance drivers to doctors – even in emergency departments and cancer centres – as they

Scotland is witnessing a concerning uptick in ‘avoidable’ deaths. With an increase of 4 per cent on the previous year, there were almost 18,000 preventable deaths in Scotland in 2021. As the rising pressures on the NHS continue to expose cracks, this week’s report on avoidable mortality from the National Records of Scotland does little

In hospitals, waiting lists have become so long that people have to queue for over two days to be seen. Patients are advised to avoid turning up if they can help it. Bed shortages mean people spend nights on corridor floors. Over 30 patients markedly deteriorate or even die each week as a result of

If there was ever a bad time to end up in hospital, today – Black Wednesday – is it. The first Wednesday of August is changeover day in NHS hospitals. A fresh-faced cohort of junior doctors arrive on the wards ready to get their hands dirty. It’s also the day that just about every trainee doctor