Part of Question Time — Scottish Executive — General Questions – in the Scottish Parliament at 11:40 am on 29 March 2007.
The question is premised on an assumption that is incorrect. The issue is not to do with a lack of funding—it is about decisions that boards make locally about how they think services can best be delivered. Of course our boards make those decisions—I do not determine the workforce of every NHS board in Scotland.
NHS Grampian has indicated to us that its plans include consideration of how it will take the service
Far from making suggestions about resources, I suggest with due respect to Mrs Milne that NHS Grampian is doing things in a different way, but it is nonetheless responsible for providing the service to people in the community. I also remind her that we have attracted not 12,000, but 15,000 new nurses to our health service, that the number of nurses increased by 2.3 per cent last year, and that a record number of people are training to be nurses in our system. We are continuing to invest in our health service and allowing services to be rolled out in different ways while ensuring that they are provided as locally as possible and that the necessary specialisation exists.