THE Health Secretary has insisted that the SNP Government has a “clear plan” for fundamental reform of the NHS, after the spending watchdog warned that “the NHS is unlikely to be able to meet growing demand” without change.
Audit Scotland said on Tuesday that it believed the Scottish Government had “no clear plan” to deliver its vision of the NHS, with auditor general Stephen Boyle saying: “To safeguard the NHS, a fundamental change in how services are provided remains urgent.
“The Scottish Government needs to set out clearly to the public and the health service how it will deliver reform, including how progress will be measured and monitored.”
Asked about the comments during an appearance on BBC Radio Scotland, Health Secretary Neil Gray insisted it was not the case.
“Well, we do have a clear plan,” he said. “The plan is to shift the balance of care from the secondary services that we're currently seeing extremely high demand in, towards more preventative primary care.
“So investing in our GP surgeries, in our pharmacists, in our optometrists to ensure that people are treated earlier so that the symptoms don't deteriorate either in their mental or their physical health.”
He added: “It's a very clear position that we have set out for some time and we're currently working with front line staff, with trade unions, with patient groups, on the reform and improvement …
“There needs to be fundamental reform of the way that our health service is delivered.”
Asked why Audit Scotland had said there was no clear plan, Gray said: “I recognise that the need for fundamental reform is clear.”
He went on: “We need to shift that balance of care to people being able to be treated much earlier in the process in the community, in a preventative way, taking population, health and public health measures to ensure that we see people well looked after in their community – and yes, perhaps having to travel a bit further for the specialist services that they need.”
Gray said one issue is that GP consultations are taking longer due to people arriving with more complex conditions.
The Government has invested more than £1 billion in social care provision to help clear the backlog in the NHS, he said.
Also appearing on the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland on Tuesday, Dr Iain Kennedy, chairman of the BMA’s Scotland Council, agreed that there is a need for “radical reform” in the NHS.
“It’s clear that urgent action is now required.”
Dr Kennedy was asked about the recent critical incident declared at NHS Grampian, which saw patients being diverted away from over-capacity hospitals, and if the situation will get more difficult over the winter.
He said: “I’m expecting things to get much worse, but it’s all predictable, this was always coming.
“We haven’t acted as a country to put the resources in the right place over all these years.”
