SNP First Minister John Swinney says he will inspire a “new course” for NHS Scotland, promising patients’ experience will be “better than it is now.”

After a week which has seen his health secretary Neil Gray mired in allegations of misleading MSPs over chauffeur-driven trips to football matches, and the abandonment of his government’s flagship National Care Service plans amid a storm of protest from councils, trade unions and opposition politicians, Mr Swinney will use a speech today to shift the focus back to NHS reform.

More than a decade after the Scottish government under then health secretary Nicola Sturgeon announced plans to “shift the balance of care” from acute services to better community-based social care, Mr Swinney will once again announce its necessity, this time promising improved support for GPs and the use of digital advances to improve access to and delivery of care.

Promising a “new course so we can safeguard our NHS for the long term,” Mr Swinney is expected to say: “The NHS is personal for me — I see first hand all that it does for my own family.

“It is personal for all of us, and that is why we care about it so much. That is why we want to see it thriving again and why we need all parts of Scottish society to unite behind its renewal.

“The challenges are great, of that I have no doubt. But I know that our NHS is fundamentally resilient and robust.

“There is nothing wrong with the NHS that can’t be fixed by what is right with the NHS.

“That includes the staff who are doing phenomenal things under enormous pressure.

“The actions I am setting out tomorrow will deliver tangible improvements that we can, and will, deliver to make people’s experience of the NHS in Scotland better than it is now.”

Scottish Labour's Dame Jackie Baillie, however, remained unconvinced, and slammed Mr Swinney’s record.

She said: “John Swinney may claim ‘full-on John’ is the solution we’re all waiting for, but the veteran SNP politician has been at the heart of the Scottish government for 17 of the past 18 years. 

“Under the SNP, nurses are treating patients in hospital corridors, ambulances are stuck outside A&E and social care is on its knees.

“Our NHS needs a change of direction and Scottish Labour is ready to deliver it.”