Cut health board numbers: Neil

Move would boost cash for care, says SNP grandee

More money would be available to treat local patients if ministers scrapped NHS Tayside and directly funded new care boards, a former SNP health secretary has said.

Alex Neil claimed vastly reducing the number of health boards would avoid the duplication of backroom roles such as chief executives, finance directors and human resources directors.

The SNP grandee, who served in First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s Cabinet until last year, said that cutting the number of health boards could also give communities a stronger voice.

Mr Neil said: “The advantage of doing that and having three strategic authorities, first of all would need to allow local people to be much more selfmanaging.

“That’s where you get the benefit of less centralisation.

“Secondly, it would allow the health service to move resources more easily around to where they are needed.

“Thirdly, it would move to a position where the Scottish Government directly funds health and social care partnerships rather than having the annual wrangling between health boards and local councils.

“Tayside would benefit more from that. If the Scottish Government put money in directly it might end up with a bigger share of the Scottish take.”

Health bosses have to find £210 million over the next five years and NHS Tayside owes Scottish ministers £33.2m for crisis loans it has received in each of the past four years.

Mr Neil, a member of the Public Audit Committee at Holyrood which has been examining NHS Tayside’s finances, spoke to The Courier as part of our three-day series on the state of the board’s finances.

Jenny Marra, the committee’s convener, has written to Health Secretary Shona Robison asking that she reviews the nationwide funding formula for health boards after local finance director Lindsay Bedford said Tayside is underpaid by £6.8m a year.

Mr Neil backed that call and said that ministers may have to accept they will not get all their money back in order to safeguard patients’ treatment.

He said: “(The savings are) about 6% of the total budget, which is twice the level of savings the health service as a whole will require to make.

“There may come a time when the Scottish Government has to consider writing off some of the money owed to them to avoid an impact on clinical performance.”

Professor Andrew Russell, NHS Tayside’s medical director, has insisted cuts of £210m will not affect patients, despite Professor John Connell, the health board’s chairman, saying it would be “foolish” to guarantee care levels.