Today, the Scottish Liberal Democrats released their manifesto for the 2016 Scottish Parliament Elections. Some of their key priorities for health and care are listed below. We will provide details on the Manifestos of all mainstream Political Parties as they are issued.
- Transform Mental Health support so people can get the treatment they need
- Double the mental health budget for children and young people so they can access better services
- End the stigma and discrimination around mental health issues
- Train more mental health professionals and co-locate them with GPs, the police, at A&E and in prisons
- Mental Health Champion for each school
- Put mental health on same statutory footing as physical health
- Advocate counselling ahead of medication for a range of interventions with “talking therapies”
- Recruit, retain and train more GPs, increasing the share of health spending on primary care, and trebling the Primary Care Fund
- Increase numbers of nurses, AHPs and counsellors working in general practice
- Add to resources available to GPs in most deprives areas
- Give more professional freedoms to health and social care workers to deliver excellent care
- Increased rights of GPS for social prescribing
- Extend use of technology enabled care and tele-medicine
- Maintain free prescriptions, eye and dental checks
- Provide robust real-terms funding of the NHS
- Promote good health and tackle inequalities
- Improve workforce planning in NHS to retain and recruit the right numbers of staff
- Extend dementia services for people of all ages
- Treat drug use as a health issue
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