NHS Scotland is “bloated” by too many managers who are making “vastly more money than our physicians”, the shadow health secretary has claimed, as he outlined his plan for solving Scotland’s healthcare crisis.

he local GP, who has ambitions to become the next health secretary, Scottish Conservative Dr Sandesh Gulhane, said NHS Scotland’s myriad of problems could be solved by creating an “accountable managerial structure who are clear their job is to facilitate clinicians”, rather than making top-down decisions themselves.

Dr Gulhane said he had plans for a “modern, efficient, and local” NHS.

Speaking exclusively toThe Scotsman, Dr Gulhane, who has been an MSP for the Glasgow region since May 2021, was asked how he would turn around Scotland’s ailing NHS, if given the chance by voters.

He said the first step was to “start to hold health boards accountable for what they are doing” and to tackle the NHS’s management structures.

Without improvement, Dr Gulhane said he believed Scotland would “see more and more people using their life savings to have knee surgery and [get] new hips”.

“The number one thing I would do is start to hold health boards accountable for decisions that they’re making and start to hold all the people and the managers that are supposed to be looking after the NHS to be accountable for their actions,” he said.

“I would start by creating a manner with which we can regulate our managers. There’s more managers than medics, it’s ridiculous. We have too many managers. We are bloated.

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