Now SNP cuts millions from NHS budgets
Smoking and obesity programmes hit
MILLIONS of pounds to help Scots lose weight, exercise and quit smoking have been cut from the NHS budget. The Scottish Government has slashed more than £5million in a year from a national fund that covers prevention of disease.
It comes after Nicola Sturgeon promised to tackle the ‘obesity epidemic’ and Health Secretary Shona Robison told the country: ‘Prevention is better than cure.’
Health boards, faced by the painful cut, have stripped more than £2.8million from
‘Prevention is better than cure’
prevention programmes, including stopsmoking sessions, health education for schoolchildren and an exercise programme for obese adults.
More than 13,000 Scots a year die from preventable illnesses, caused by the way they live. The biggest killer is lung cancer, caused by smoking, which costs the NHS around £9,000 per patient. An average group stopsmoking session is said to cost £50 a time in comparison.
Thousands also die from strokes and seven types of cancer, including bowel and breast cancer, fuelled by obesity.
Some health boards say they are redesigning services to make up for the funding shortfall but there are fears that the cuts to services will add to Scotland’s health crisis.
Liberal Democrat health spokesman Alex Cole-Hamilton said: ‘Thousands of Scots die as a result of smoking and weight-related cancers every year. Reaching people at risk early and helping them make healthy choices saves lives and money. We know targets for early diagnosis of cancer have been missed by a long way. Now the SNP are cutting funds that stop people from getting ill in the first place.’
It is six years since Miss Sturgeon, then Health Secretary, announced that Scotland was ‘in the grip of an obesity epidemic’. She said: ‘Initiatives are already under way to help prevent obesity but we need to do much more.’
Five years ago, Miss Robison said: ‘Prevention is better than cure and we are dedicated to doing all that we can to identify those at risk from as early as possible.’
Now the SNP is set to cut off funding for the Keep Well programme at the end of 2016-17, to the dismay of many family doctors. This lifeline service gave Scots aged 40 to 64 in less affluent areas a health check for their risk of heart disease, then helped overhaul their diet and exercise to protect them.
The Scottish Government has stripped £5.4million in total from its Outcomes Framework, which includes prevention, electronic health and dental services.
The Scottish Government’s draft budget puts the money spent on the same services as the framework before it existed in 2015-16 at £230.4million.
This year the figure has been cut to £161million, which, excluding £64million moved elsewhere in the health budget, shows £5.4million has been slashed from the fund.
In response, nine health boards which provided responses to the Scottish Daily Mail, said they had cut their budgets for ‘effective prevention’ by a total of more than £2.8million.
The worst example is a cut of £800,000 for 2016-17 in Greater Glasgow and Clyde.
The services affected are programmes to help children stay at a healthy weight, adult weight programmes, stop-smoking programmes and vital sexual health services for patients at risk of blood-borne viruses and hepatitis C.
Yet despite fears, health boards say there will be little or no impact on their programmes from the funding cuts.
The Scottish Government said the total NHS budget has increased from 2015-16 to 2016-17. A spokesman added: ‘The Scottish Government does not assign budget values against individual programmes.
‘Boards have been asked to continue with Keep Well by integrating it into current services and adapting it to suit their local population needs.’