Lothian MSP Miles Briggs has criticised the NHS Scotland Resource Allocation Committee (NRAC) formula used by SNP Ministers to allocate funding to each health board.
In yesterday’s Stage 1 debate on the Scottish budget, Briggs raise his concerns over the continual underfunding of NHS Lothian and call for the health board to get a fair deal.
The total shortfall relative to the NRAC target allocation for NHS Lothian, since 2009/10 when NRAC was introduced, amounts to £365.7 million.
The latest figures presented to the Health and Sport Committee at Holyrood show that NHS Lothian’s funding allocation was £136.3 million for 2019/20, £11.6 million short of the NHS Lothian NRAC Target Allocation, the biggest distance in funding of any health board.
Over the last year NHS Lothian has had some of the longest waiting times for treatment in Scotland, with record waiting times for A&E services, cancer treatments and operations.
Another consideration when providing NHS board allocations is that Lothian has the fastest growing population in Scotland, growing twice as fast as the Scottish average, and a rapidly ageing population as well.
NHS Lothian is also home to many national services which also impacts on the costs of delivering services, as well as having a large student population which disturbs the formula.
The UK Government’s has provided record investment in health spending and finance secretary Derek Mackay will have tens of millions more to allocate to health boards through the Barnett Formula.
Miles Briggs, Scottish Conservative Lothian MSP, said: “SNP Ministers have asked NHS Lothian to deliver the same services as the rest of Scotland, but with less money, which has led to waiting times in NHS Lothian being amongst the longest in Scotland.
“NHS Lothian is already the most expensive part of Scotland to deliver services and recruit and retain NHS staff, with additional pressures being added by underfunding of the health board.
“The short changing of NHS Lothian over the last decade has started to take its toll.
“The Cabinet Secretary has acknowledged that the NRAC formula disadvantages some health boards and is open to reviewing the formula.
“The NRAC formula has to be reviewed so that people in Lothian get a fair deal to allow our local health facilities to fight on a level playing field with their counterparts elsewhere in the country, and deliver a better deal for long-suffering patients.
“That’s why I’m calling on the SNP government to use upcoming budget announcements to sort this disparity out for good and start providing NHS Lothian with the funding that it needs.”
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