Every patient in Scotland will be guaranteed a GP appointment within 48 hours if Labour form the next Scottish Government, Kezia Dugdale will pledge in her conference speech in Glasgow on Saturday.

Scottish Labour will also pledge to invest in primary care by expanding roles for pharmacies and increasing support staff in GP practices with an investment of £500 million into primary care.

Dugdale will say: “Labour will use our powers to offer a real plan for the future of our NHS. We will increase funding for the NHS year on year in real terms.

"Our Labour Party that established the NHS in the 1940s will be there to ensure that our health service is fit for the challenges of the 2040s.

"Because the NHS isn’t just another policy agenda for Labour, it is part of who we are as a party, our pride in its creation inspires everything else we do.

"We can take the pressure off our hospitals by getting primary care right, delivering the NHS services people need in their communities.

"Instead of the cuts to GPs we’ve seen in the last decade, our plan for the NHS will guarantee an appointment at your local surgery that you can book online within 48 hours."

The Lothian MSP will also offer a challenge to rival party leaders to answer a host of questions which she believes will define the upcoming Holyrood election.

She will say: “This is the election where we see who our leaders really are.

“Who will stop the cuts? Who will care more for the vulnerable? Who will invest in the future of our economy? Who will be bold? And who will just settle for more of the same?

"The answers we give to these new questions will reveal who we are as leaders, what our parties stand for and who we are as a nation.

"This is who I am. I’m a socialist."

The Scottish Labour leader will also take the opportunity in her speech to spell out her desire to change children's life chances.

Dugdale will say: “I believe that trend is not destiny. That people aren’t fated to be rich or poor. That we can choose to be better as a society.

"It isn’t a foregone conclusion that children born to poor families are half as likely to get to university as their wealthier classmates. “It isn’t inevitable that that same child born poor will die nearly a decade earlier.

"It isn’t their destiny that poor children will be more likely to die in an accident, more likely to go to prison, more likely to take their own life when they are adults."

Voters in Scotland will go to the polls on May 5.

An SNP spokeswoman said: "The SNP has boosted health spending to a record high of almost £13 billion a year, with investment in GPs rising by more than a fifth since 2007, and we have also boosted health service staff to an all-time high, with 11,000 more workers.

"Statistics show the vast majority of people across Scotland can already access GP surgery appointments within 48 hours - and we're committed to investing in primary care and increasing GP numbers further to meet the needs of the sector as demand increases.

"The challenge to Labour is whether they will match our commitment to increase the frontline NHS budget in at least real terms in every year of the next parliament."