The Scottish Election: What do the party manifestos say about preventing poor health outcomes?

With the Scottish election on 7th May, it’s worth considering how the political parties considered and addressed primary prevention, especially with regards to healthcare, health-harming products, housing and homelessness, employment, and household costs and childcare. Prevention has been an important part of the Scottish policy discussion for the last 15 years and it’s worth considering how this will carry forward.

As of this writing, there are six parties which are predicted to win seats in the election on 7th May. These are the Scottish National Party (SNP), Reform UK, Labour, the Scottish Greens, the Liberal Democrats, and the Conservative and Unionist Party. At present, it’s likely that SNP will retain leadership of the Scottish Parliament, although it’s not clear whether they’ll win the 65 seats needed for a majority, nor is it clear how many seats other parties will gain.

All parties had a range of policies which could likely fall under primary prevention. Looking across these policy areas, we assessed each manifesto for the overall quality of preventative policy goals, their cost and feasibility, and how joined-up different policy areas are.