Nicola Sturgeon has challenged Keir Starmer to commit to investing more in the NHS if his party wins power at the next general election.
The First Minister attacked the UK Labour leader as a "pale imitation" of the Tories yesterday while giving an update on crisis facing the health service.
Starmer had used an interview on Sunday to warn the NHS must reform in order to survive.
He said the health service should always be free at the point of use but there was also a role for the private sector, including to help clear waiting lists.
Speaking at a press conference in Edinburgh, the SNP leader described Starmer's comments on the NHS as "pretty dispiriting".
She insisted reforms to the health service in Scotland were already underway and her government was "investing to the maximum".
Any future UK Government increase in health spending in England would see the Scottish Government handed more funding as a consequence.
Sturgeon said: "The reforming of patient pathways and how care is delivered in the NHS is already underway in Scotland and will continue.
"I think what people across the UK probably want to hear from the leader of the opposition, someone who is aspiring to be prime minister in the next couple of few years, is a commitment to invest more in the health service."
She also added a commitment to reverse Brexit would help address some of the "recruitment challenges" in the NHS.
Sturgeon continued: "We are investing to the maximum that we can in NHS Scotland. We are asking those who earn more to pay a bit more tax.
"We're doing what we can to maximise the investment going to the NHS. But to go beyond that, we need to see a UK Government that actually lifts the level of the investment going to the NHS.
"That's a point I was making to the Prime Minister when I saw him last Thursday evening - but I don't have much hope a Tory government is going to do that.
"But surely people would expect to hear from the Labour leader, aspiring to replace the Tory government, an actual commitment to significant additional investment in the NHS."
Sturgeon also announced that hospitals in Scotland are seeing a "very slight easing" in winter pressures but remain "very full".
She said were now signs that the situation in A&E wards was "stabilising" after weeks of Scots facing waiting times of 12 hours or more to be seen.
But the SNP leader also warned the pressure on the overall health service remained "intense".
"It's fair to say the pressures continue to be very severe and the NHS remains under significant strain - that in part reflects very high levels of Covid, flu, Strep A and other respiratory illnesses.
"These short-term pressures - and we hope they are relatively short-term pressures - in addition to longer term challenges that the NHS has been facing since before the pandemic continue to make this one of the most difficult winters in the history of the NHS.
"While the majority of patients continue to receive excellent and timely care, the current pressures are having an adverse impact on too many."
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