Scottish NHS

Willie Rennie has not done his homework for his article “The SNP tries to demonise the UK – but we wouldn’t have the NHS without it” (Perspective, 28 February), as Scotland’s NHS has always had many distinctive features and currently outperforms NHS England by a considerable margin.

Prior to the creation of Scotland’s NHS in 1948, half of Scotland’s landmass was already covered by the Highlands and Islands Medical Service, a state-funded health system run directly from Edinburgh which had been set up 35 years earlier.

Prior to 1948, Scotland’s health system was centred on its medical schools rather than private practice and had a detailed plan for the future of health provision based on the Cathcart report. There was no such blueprint in England.

The NHS in England was largely abolished by the Health and Social Care Act in 2012. It is now rapidly being dismantled and privatised, opened up to user charges plus changes in funding that translates into the Barnett Formula into a real reduction in funding for Scotland that still has a national health service.

Also, Willie Rennie doesn’t understand the Growth Commission report as it clearly states on page 43 that “Scotland should explicitly reject the austerity model pursued by the UK in recent years. Scotland needs to focus on both the real economy, and putting

finances on a sustainable footing, as dual fiscal goals. There will be much work to be done to bridge the gap between Scotland’s performance and potential.”

The two-year-old Growth Commission also ignored oil and gas revenues in its calculations.

Suggestions that the 30th richest country in the world can’t afford the NHS or enjoy a decent standard of living after independence have no basis in fact.

MARY THOMAS Watson Crescent, Edinburgh