NHS spending on GPS, prescription drugs and dentistry drops in Scotland
Cash for family health services fell in real terms last year despite overall spending on the NHS topping more than £12 billion in Scotland.
Operating costs amounted to £12,026,998 in 2017/18 – a 1.5 per cent real terms increase on 2016/17.
But new data from the NHS showed a real-terms decline in spending on the family health sector, which includes GP services, prescription drugs and dental and ophthalmic services.
Opposition politicians warned GP surgeries had reached “crisis point”. The share of NHS spending devoted to family doctors has fallen from 7.3 per cent in 2013/14 to 6.8 per cent this year.
This is despite a Scottish Government pledge that funding for primary care will increase to 11 per cent of the frontline NHS budget by 2021/22. Family health is the second largest area of NHS expenditure after hospitals, with the figures showing £2.6 billion was spent on this in 2017.18 – a drop of 0.4 per cent in real terms.
Primary care services at Scotland’s 959 GP practices in Scotland cost £822 million last year – a rise of 2.7 per cent in cash terms on 2016/17.
Spending on Scotland’s hospitals amounted to £6.6bn last year – a rise of 0.1 per cent in real terms – with this sector amounting for 55 per cent of NHS costs. Community health services such as district nurses, health visitors and GP outof-hours care cost £2.4bn – a real-terms increase of 4.8 per cent on 2016/17
The Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh warned: “For the NHS to survive financially, a proper funding plan must be in place.”
A spokesman for the RCPE said: “The cost of running the Scottish NHS rose to £12bn in 2017/18, indicating that we are spending around £1.5bn more than we were five years ago.”
Liberal Democrat health spokesman Alex Cole-hamilton said SNP “mismanagement has brought GP surgeries to crisis-point”. But health secretary Jeane Freeman said the figures showed “good progress to our twin track approach of record investment coupled with reform in health and social care”.