The SNP have taken their eye off the ball on public services and nowhere is that more obvious that in our health service. 

The coronavirus pandemic has shown how much we need and value health and care services and the people who work in them. However, they are under pressure like never before.  

Waiting times were the worst ever pre-pandemic but now they are out of control. NHS vacancies are at their highest ever but still the SNP voted down a Burnout Prevention Strategy for staff. 

My party has a rich history of investing in Scotland’s health, introducing free dental and eye checks, free personal care and recently winning £120 million more for mental health. But this progress is being squandered under the SNP. 

Whenever I speak with doctors, nurses and care staff, they feel demoralised. They are proud of the work they do but too often they are being pushed towards the exit because they are not getting the support they need. That needs to change.  

The solutions seem obvious: boost social care packages so that people can be released from hospital and beds freed up, a massive programme of recruitment to secure the future of the workforce and the resources to bring down long waits for operations and cancer treatment. Sadly so much of that seems out of reach so long as the SNP remain in charge. 

As I have toured the country in the run up to the local elections, I have met with health campaigners from Thurso to Dundee campaigning to safeguard and protect local health services. 

Far too often crucial decisions about health care provision in communities across Scotland are being taken by distant SNP ministers in Edinburgh. 

Whether it be women having to travel for hours to give birth in the Highlands or local GP surgeries closing on Tayside, it’s clear that a top down, one size fits all model simply does not work for Scotland. 

That’s why Scottish Liberal Democrat want to put more power over local health services into the hands of local communities. 

We need sustainable, long-term budgets to allow health boards to invest in staff and facilities, letting people get the care they need closer to home. 

Every Scottish Liberal Democrat candidate elected next week will be a champion for local health services, pushing for more mental health practitioners in key local settings such as GP surgeries and alongside the police and supporting sufferers of long Covid who have been overlooked by the Scottish Government. 

Communities need new hope. They will only get that with the Scottish Liberal Democrats.