ANAS SARWAR has urged voters to back Scottish Labour to “save the NHS,” warning that the health service is “not safe with John Swinney and the SNP.

“This election isn’t over,” the Scottish Labour leader insisted today, despite polls suggesting the SNP could win a fifth term at tomorrow’s Holyrood elections.

Backing Mr Sarwar’s bid to end the SNP’s 19-year reign, Shetland GP Susan Bowie said she saw the “toll [that] long waits are taking on patients” but branded SNP plans for walk-in GP clinics “just a gimmick that will draw resources away from overstretched GP services.”

University of Edinburgh neurologist Professor Malcolm Macleod said: “I’m tired of seeing excellent, highly motivated clinical colleagues working really hard to build up a service, only for it to come crashing down when someone retires or goes off sick.”

Arguing that the election was a “chance to change that,” he added: “The SNP seems to be much more interested in headlines in the papers than it is in whether the NHS is actually working for patients.”

Mr Sarwar said: “Our NHS is not safe with John Swinney and the SNP.

“They have left patients waiting in pain, families without answers and staff under unbearable pressure.

“We have all seen the mess the SNP have made over 20 years and families across Scotland have paid the price.

“You’ve given the SNP 20 years; give me five to save our NHS.”

But SNP candidate Maree Todd, defending the Caithness, Sutherland and Ross constituency, insisted: “We have the best-performing A&E, waiting times are down, operation numbers are up, we have more GPs and GP walk-in centres are opening all over the country — the SNP’s plan for the NHS is working.”