Scottish Labour‘s acting leader Jackie Baillie said she was not sure that two mainland health boards would be sufficient and called for a specific board covering the Highlands and north east.
She said the SNP’s attitude towards the health service is to “promise the world but “deliver nothing but failure”, adding that Scotland’s patients “deserve so much better”.
Reform UK Scotland leader Malcolm Offord describes Swinney’s pledges as the “same old empty promises, rebranded”.
He criticised plans including GP walk-in clinics, food price caps and the “welcome to school” bag for primary one pupils as “gimmicks”, not “reforms”.
The Scottish Greens were critical of the bus fares plan for not going far enough and the NHS reforms, saying scrapping regional health boards would cause significant concern among patients and staff.
The party’s health spokesperson Kayleigh Kinross-O’Neill called for reassurances that there would be no compulsory redundancies of NHS staff, while co-leader Gillian Mackay said that free bus travel should have been expanded to everyone.
Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay said his party had been arguing that Scotland’s public sector was “bloated and inefficient” but said he had little faith in the government’s ability to deliver reforms.
He said: “Just look at the mess they have made of Police Scotland which lurches from one crisis to another, or the millions they squandered on their abandoned National Care Service.”