This week Cunninghame North’s four candidates give their views on the NHS and what they would do if elected on May 5.

Jamie Greene - Scottish Conservatives

The NHS is one of our most cherished institutions and while it is there to care for us, we need to care for it too but it’s fair to say the NHS has suffered under the SNP, which has failed to properly invest in our health service since it came to power more than a decade ago.

The SNP has repeatedly tried to lay the blame for its budgetary woes at Westminster’s door, but this argument simply doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. The facts are clear – the Scottish Government has received an additional £1.5bn in Barnett consequentials from the UK Government since 2011. In England health spending rose by seven per cent in real terms between 2010/11 and 2015/16, it increased by only one per cent in Scotland over the same period.

We also know that our fully devolved NHS is facing serious problems. Delayed discharge, missed waiting time targets and overburdened A&Es are just some of the symptoms of SNP mismanagement.

In NHS Ayrshire and Arran, the latest figures for January 2016 show that patients spent a staggering 2,270 days in hospital unnecessarily because of delays to discharge. Worse, the total for the health board in January 2016 is nine per cent higher than in April 2015, the start of this year’s reporting period. 31 per cent or 781 of those days were lost in North Ayrshire, an 84 per cent rise on the comparable figure for April 2015.

We also need to alleviate pressure on our A&Es. The latest figures for the health board show that at the beginning of April, only 86.6 per cent of patients attending emergency departments were seen within four hours – almost 10 per cent lower than the SNP’s 95 per cent target and the worst performing health board of them all.

These figures are disappointing, but the Scottish Conservatives have proposed policies to help reduce A&E waiting times, including the creation of Recovery Centres for drunk and incapable people who would ordinarily attend A&E.

Over the next Parliament, we will demand that the Scottish health budget increases by whatever is highest – inflation, 2% or Barnett consequentials. On current projections, that would mean an additional £1.25 billion for the NHS by 2020/21.

We need a strong opposition to hold the SNP to account on our NHS and put forward constructive policies to protect its long-term future – and only the Scottish Conservatives are up to the job.

Kenneth Gibson - Scottish National Party

The NHS is our most cherished public service. In everything we remain true to founding principles – publicly owned, delivered and free at the point of need. Protecting our NHS is vital and one of our first acts in government was to scrap Labour’s plans to close Ayr Accident & Emergency Unit.

Despite yearly UK cuts to Scotland’s budget, we have protected health. This year NHS Ayrshire & Arran’s Budget has increased by £34.5 million to £669 million.

Across Scotland, staff numbers have increased by 11,248 under the SNP, including 2,512 more nurses, 2,581 more doctors - 26.9% up - and 1,522 more dentists, a 41.8% increase.

The SNP prioritised patients receiving the best possible care from hard-working staff in clean, well run hospitals. This resulted in a 16.3% reduction in hospital deaths. Crosshouse has the biggest decrease in Scotland; 34.2% since 2007!

In Scotland A&E consultant numbers are up 178% and 94.5% of patients at A&E units are seen within four hours, compared to 86.6% in England under the Tories and 76.9% in Wales under Labour.

£54.8 million has been invested in an Acute Mental Health Community Hospital, opening this year in Irvine. This will provide ‘state of the art’ facilities backed by outreach teams and see Ayrshire & Arran lead Scotland in mental health care. The number of staff looking after children with mental health problems has increased 50%.

We delivered recommended pay rises for Scottish NHS staff, with nurses now paid on average £714 a year more than in England.

We are integrating health and social care, developing a genuinely Community Health Service to support people living longer, often with complex conditions, delivering care as close to home as possible.

GP training places will increase from 300 to 400 annually and another 1,000 community paramedics will be trained.

Prescriptions and eye tests will remain free and community audiology services will be enhanced.

Over 4.7 million patients are now registered with an NHS dentist in Scotland, an 82% increase under the SNP.

Our Cancer Strategy will invest £100 million in over 50 actions to improve prevention, detection, diagnosis, treatment and aftercare, including continuation and expansion of the Detect Cancer Early programme, greater investment in radiotherapy equipment and staff.

We will recruit an extra 500 health visitors by 2018 and roll-out family nurse partnerships to support first time, vulnerable mothers under 25 and children at risk of moving into care.

Charity Pierce - Scottish Liberal Democrats

Scottish Liberal Democrats have ambitious and positive plans to make the NHS in Scotland the best again. Poor health limits individual freedom and he chance for people to achieve their potential. It was the reason a liberal called William Beveridge devised the plan for the National Health Service that has served the UK for almost 70 years. 

To keep making sure people live longer, healthier lives our health service needs solid funding. That’s why I’ll be campaigning for a Scottish Government that is prepared to tackle issues that have been allowed to drift down the agenda for too long. 

One of those issues is mental health. Around one in four people in Scotland will have a mental health problem at some time in their life and I believe mental health services are still being treated as second-class in our NHS. Over recent years the share of the NHS budget spent on mental health has dropped year-on-year. That’s why Scottish Liberal Democrats will increase it. We’ll also double funding for the mental health services that provide treatment and support for children and young people. I also want to see mental health put on the same legal footing as physical health. You wouldn’t wait a year for treatment for a broken arm so why should people with mental health conditions have to wait that long for treatment? 

I am also standing up for GPs and making sure treatment for health issues can be delivered as locally as possible. There is no doubt that there is a GP recruitment crisis in Scotland. A third of GPs are expected to retire by 2020 and there are already long-term vacancies in many surgeries that are struggling to be filled. That’s why I’m pleased Scottish Liberal Democrats will increase the proportion of NHS funding that is allocated to primary care and treble the Primary Care Fund which will address immediate workload and recruitment issues. 

I also think we need to add to the resources available to GPs in deprived areas as a priority to tackle health inequalities. There is too much of a postcode lottery based on where you live when it comes to getting treatment for health conditions. People living in Cunninghame North deserve the best quality health care no matter where they live.

Johanna Baxter - Scottish Labour

The NHS is our most cherished institution and we in the Labour Party are proud of creating it but we are just as committed to ensuring it is resourced for the future.

The SNP will say the NHS has ‘record levels of funding’ but the real issue is whether Ayrshire and Arran Health Board have enough funds to deliver the services our community requires and all the evidence demonstrates it doesn’t. They have a £30m black hole to find this year and last month the board - which includes the SNP leader of North Ayrshire council - agreed they “cannot currently set a balanced budget for 2016/17”.

Under the SNP private health spending has rocketed (up £36,877,777 in the two years 2013/14 – 2014/15) and when Nicola Sturgeon spoke last week about the evils of the Private Finance Initiative, it was ironic she did so from Irvine where the £50m Acute Mental Health and North Ayrshire Community Hospital is being built using private finance.

The most recent NHS Scotland staff survey showed only one third of NHS Staff believe there are enough staff for them to do their job properly; A&E targets haven’t been met for six and a half years; spending on agency nursing and midwifery staff has quadrupled; the Royal College of General Practices estimate that funding for general practice has been cut by over a £1bn and BMA Scotland estimate more than a quarter of GP practices struggle to fill vacancies. And last year Gordon Aikman revealed that more than 270 Scots died waiting on care packages. That is a deplorable statistic and a shameful record.

Labour will turn things around by;

* Protecting health spending from cuts for the whole of the next parliament.

* Investing more in preventing mental health conditions and research for diseases of the nervous system like MND.

* Properly resourcing primary care and social care to relieve pressure on hospitals, by targeting spending on expanding roles for pharmacies and increasing support staff in GP practices, allowing the rest of the health budget to be spent more efficiently and effectively.

* Setting a target of an appointment with a primary care professional within 48 hours and a social care package within a week by the end of the next parliament.

* Ensuring that care workers are paid a real living wage through a National Careworkers’ Guarantee, and ensure that no staff are left on zero hours contracts.