News / Real-terms increases for Scottish boards

By Seamus Ward

Territorial health boards in Scotland will receive average budget increases of 3.1% next year, said Scottish finance secretary John Swinney as he launched his draft Budget for 2014/15.

Mr Swinney said the full consequentials of the increased resources for health in England had been passed on to NHS Scotland.

Overall healthcare funding will increase to about £12bn, a rise of £138m over the current year. Territorial and special health boards will receive revenue of £9.4bn, a 2.9% cash increase, with the balance shared between sport, equalities and the Food Standards Agency Scotland.

A more detailed look at the revenue allocation for 2014/15 shows territorial health boards – those covering geographical areas such as Lothian and Orkney – will be allocated an increase of about 3% overall.

While most of the boards will receive an increase of about 2.5%, some will exceed this. The boards include NHS Fife (3.3%), NHS Forth Valley (3.6%), Grampian (4%) and Orkney (4.7%). A further 2.4% overall rise in board revenue allocations is planned for 2015/16, with territorial boards receiving an extra 2.7%.

As in previous years, the budgets of some special health boards will be reduced to fund increases for frontline services. For example, NHS Health Scotland’s allocation will be cut from £18.5m in the current year to £17.7m.

Mr Swinney said that £120m would be provided in 2015/16 for prevention of ill health through better integration of health and social care. This will include £100m that will be directly allocated to health boards. Capital will fall by almost 37% in 2014/15 and by a further 36% in 2015/16 under the proposals.

A spokesperson from the Scottish government insisted health spending had been protected.

‘The resource budget will reach a record high of £11.8bn by 2015/16, an increase of more than £2bn since 2007. All our NHS territorial boards, which provide frontline point of care services, are seeing increases to their budgets in real terms in both 2014/15 and 2015/16, with average cash uplifts of 3.1% and 2.7%, respectively.

‘In addition, we will complete the £842m New South Glasgow Hospitals project in 2015/16, which is on time and on budget.’