Scotland’s former lead cancer clinician says ‘pork-barrel politics’ have left the NHS ‘hurtling over a precipice’

Dr Anna Gregor, formerly Scotland’s lead cancer clinician, has launched a scathing attack on the SNP government — claiming that “pork-barrel politics of the highest order” has left the NHS “hurtling over a precipice”.

Gregor, who led Scotland’s successful cancer strategy and was recognised for her services to medicine with a CBE, said the health service has been starved of cash during the SNP’s decade in power.

Extra funding made available by the UK government to Scotland under the Barnett formula whenever it increased health investment in England was not put into the NHS in Scotland in the form of so-called “consequentials” after the SNP came to power, she said.

“The main problem for me about the Scottish health service is that until about 10