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NHS Highland (Meetings)
Scottish Executive Question Time — Health and Wellbeing
2:15 pm
Peter Peacock (Labour)
To ask the Scottish Executive when it last met representatives of NHS Highland and what issues were discussed. (S3O-12562)
Nicola Sturgeon (Scottish National Party)
I meet all health board chairs regularly. The most recent meeting with NHS Highland representatives was on 22 November 2010.
Peter Peacock (Labour)
The cabinet secretary will appreciate the concern of a number of communities in the Highlands about the prospect of not now benefiting from capital spending as a result of NHS Highland no longer being able to access £20 million of capital funding that was reserved for that purpose. Will she invite her officials to establish with NHS Highland a mechanism by which it can get early access to any future financial flexibility to restore that capital spending as quickly as possible?
Nicola Sturgeon (Scottish National Party)
As I am sure that Peter Peacock will acknowledge, the context of the question that he has just asked is the same as the subject that we were talking about a few moments ago: the huge cut in our capital budget for next year and the comprehensive spending review. Incidentally, that cut in our capital budget was planned in full by the previous Labour Government and is being implemented by the current UK coalition Government. That meant that we had to take a hard look at how we allocate capital to health boards. The new arrangements will take effect from April 2011.
One of the changes allows a health board to make a bid for project-specific public funding when new public capital becomes available. To ensure fairness in that system, funds that were previously banked by health boards will be included within project-specific funding. In following that path, the Government can ensure that we still give priority to publicly funded schemes and that the investment that has been made in our health service in recent years continues as far as possible.
I and my officials will continue to discuss those issues carefully and closely with health boards to ensure that we are able to implement as ambitious a capital programme in the NHS as possible.
Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat)
An issue that should be discussed with NHS Highland is access to orthodontic services. At present, patients who live in the far north are obliged to make many long return journeys to Inverness for consultation and treatment. Recent winter weather has disrupted those journeys and led to appointments being missed. It would be far better if orthodontic
Nicola Sturgeon (Scottish National Party)
The member raises an important issue and I will answer generally before I address his specific point about orthodontic treatment. One of the health themes of our time in government has been to provide health care as locally as possible whenever it can be provided locally. Across areas such as chemotherapy and dialysis, for example, as well as a lot of investigative and diagnostic procedures, patients who often would have been required to travel long distances to the central belt for those procedures can now access them locally. That is the general trend and direction of travel that we have set in the health service, and it is welcome.
The issue of orthodontic treatment in the Highlands is, as I am sure Jamie Stone knows, a long-standing one. He is absolutely right to say that patients should be able to access treatment locally and should not have to travel long distances unnecessarily. We—the Minister for Public Health and Sport, in particular—are working closely with NHS Highland to ensure that that is the case, and we are happy to keep Jamie Stone up to date on progress on the issue.