Irvine’s MP, Dr. Philippa Whitford, has hit out at Boris Johnson and urged the Prime Minister to sort out the “mess that his party” has made of the health and social care system in England.

The SNP MP spoke during a House of Commons debate on health and social care where she attacked the Tories’ record on the NHS.

During the debate Dr. Whitford said: “All four UK national health services face the same challenges of increasing demand, workforce shortages and tight finances, but the NHS in England has faced almost 10 years of unprecedented austerity, with annual uplifts of about one per cent for quite a significant part of the past decade.”

The SNP MP went on to attack the increasing privatisation in NHS England.

She said: “Although it was Labour that introduced private healthcare companies into the NHS and saddled all four UK health services with financially crippling private finance initiatives, it was the coalition Government’s Health and Social Care Act 2012 that created the full-blown healthcare market in NHS England.”

Dr. Whitford also raised concerns over the impact that Brexit will have on all four NHS services in the UK.

The Central Ayrshire MP said: “The workforce is the biggest single challenge facing health and social care services. That problem has been aggravated by Brexit, with a 90 per cent drop in the number of EU nurses coming to the UK and a one-third increase in the number leaving it.”

Dr Whitford concluded her speech in the Commons saying: “The Prime Minister likes to attack the Scottish NHS. I gently suggest that he take the plank out of his own eye, read some statistics, and focus on sorting out the mess that his party has made of the health and social care system for which he is responsible.”