Nicola Sturgeon brings back Covid-style press briefing TODAY

Nicola Sturgeon will stage a Covid-style press briefing today as she faces a backlash for focusing on her drive to split the UK instead of the NHS crisis.

The SNP leader will face questions alongside Scotland’s national clinical director Jason Leitch and embattled health spokesman Humza Yousaf.

Mr Yousaf admitted yesterday that the health service north of the border is in turmoil, with warnings that record A&E waits and delayed discharge numbers are costing patients their lives.

A poll has suggested Scots want the SNP to focus on the NHS chaos and cost-of-living issues rather than efforts to force an independence referendum.  

Meanwhile, Ms Sturgeon is facing a huge row over her plans to loosen gender identity rules in Scotland, reducing age limits and removing the need for a medical diagnosis.  

Nicola Sturgeon (pictured delivering her New Year message) will stage a Covid-style press briefing today as she faces a backlash for focusing on her drive to split the UK instead of the NHS crisis

Ms Sturgeon will try to get back on the front foot with the press conference this morning, after being criticised for staying silent over pressure on services.  Rising Covid cases and winter flu have been adding to the problems across the UK.

The line-up is similar to the daily briefings from the height of the pandemic. 

A Survation poll for the Scotland in Union group found 62 per cent thought the Scottish government should be prioritising the cost-of-living crisis.

That compared to only 8 per cent who chose an independence referendum. 

Some 26 per cent thought the SNP should continue spending public money on planning for another national vote to leave the union, after the UK Supreme Court ruled it cannot proceed without permission from Westminster. 

Mr Yousaf’s BBC comments about the NHS came after Dr Lailah Peel, the deputy chairman of the British Medical Association (BMA) in Scotland told the Mail that the waiting times crisis is leading to more than 50 needless deaths a week. 

Figures show that 1,925 patients spent 12 hours or more in Accident and Emergency in the week leading up to Christmas.

Only 56.9 per cent were seen within the SNP’s four-hour target time, marginally up from the record low of 55.1 per cent the previous week.

Speaking on BBC Scotland’s The Sunday Show yesterday, Dr Peel said lives were ‘absolutely’ being lost.

She described the situation as ‘absolutely brutal’ adding that every frontline health worker knows of patients who had ‘suffered’ because of the turmoil.

But a defiant Mr Yousaf yesterday denied that the Government had been ill-prepared for winter.

Asked if he had done ‘enough planning’, Mr Yousaf told the BBC: ‘Yes. We planned for this winter as soon as the last winter was over and we got right into meetings with our local health boards, with our social care colleagues and everybody else.

‘There are some things that we just would not have been able to foresee – the high levels of inflation caused by the reckless mini budget, for example, and the impact that has had on social care costs.’

The SNP leader will face questions alongside Scotland’s national clinical director Jason Leitch and embattled health spokesman Humza Yousaf (pictured)

Mr Yousaf played down a call by Scottish Labour for the Army to be drafted in to help with the crisis. He also cited the effect of high numbers of flu and virus infections, saying: ‘This is an unprecedented crisis. I don’t use that word lightly but it is something that all governments are facing.’ 

Scottish Conservative health spokesman Dr Sandesh Gulhane said : ‘Humza Yousaf is still in denial about how he completely failed to support Scotland’s NHS ahead of the worst winter in living memory that overwhelmed staff and suffering patients are continuing to endure.

‘Under Humza Yousaf, A&E waiting times have spiralled out of control, patients are waiting longer and longer for vital treatments and fit and healthy patients cannot leave hospital as a result of the SNP’s failure to eradicate delayed discharge, which they promised to do eight years ago.

‘Humza Yousaf’s dire forward planning has exposed how out of his depth he is as Health Secretary. He should be sacked by Nicola Sturgeon immediately.’