Thank you for inviting me to discuss the draft budget for 2015-16. As always, I welcome the opportunity to give evidence on this most important of subjects, ensuring that there is fair and appropriate funding for the national health service in Scotland—an asset that is precious to us all.
Over the next few years, the demand for health and social care and the circumstances in which it is delivered will become radically different. NHS Scotland must work with its partners across the public and voluntary sectors to ensure that it continues to provide the high-quality health and social care services that the people of Scotland expect and deserve, thereby securing the best possible outcomes for people through the care and support that they receive.
It is in that context that we have developed our vision that, by 2020, everyone will be able to live longer and healthier lives at home or in a homely setting. During 2012, a route map to the 2020 vision for health and social care was developed and has continued to provide a focus on the priorities that will have the greatest impact on achievement of our vision. The route map describes 12 priority areas for action in three domains: first, improving the quality of the care that we provide; secondly, improving the health of the population; and thirdly, securing the value and financial sustainability of the health and care services that we provide. I believe that those three aims must be central, and are central, to our funding commitments, which are contained in the 2015-16 draft budget, and I shall briefly set out how that is the case.
We are focused on ensuring that the care that people receive is person centred, safe and effective. People expect services that work in a co-ordinated way with them, that understand what matters most in their lives and which build support around achieving the outcomes that are important to patients. The integration of care puts in place a framework to ensure that health and social care services are planned, resourced and delivered together by NHS boards and local authorities in order to improve outcomes for the people who use the services, their carers and their families. That is why we are allocating £100 million to support integrated partnerships and a further £73.5 million—an increase of £53.5 million on the £20 million that was previously announced—to support the development of new models of care in local areas.
In addition, ensuring appropriate care and treatment for people who require specialist and often expensive medicines for rare conditions remains a priority. That is why we are investing £40 million through the new medicines fund. That doubles the commitment that I made last year. Last year’s investment supported the costs of 45 different medicines, which benefited more than 200 patients. By doubling the investment, we will see the fund having an even greater impact in 2015-16.
NHS Scotland plays a vital role in improving and maintaining the good health of the people of Scotland as a whole, and in reducing health inequalities. The 2015-16 draft budget includes an additional £4.4 million to support the continued expansion of the family nurse partnership programme, with a focus on supporting parents in deprived communities. There will be an additional £4.6 million to support the extension of the immunisations programme, and £8 million will be used for the getting it right for every child programme to support the provision of person-centred, safe and effective care for women and babies.
Although Scotland’s health is improving, it is improving more slowly than comparable European countries. We will therefore continue to pursue a preventive agenda with on-going resources being committed to alcohol intervention, to reducing smoking rates and to improving oral health.
It is also essential that we secure the value and financial sustainability of our health and social care services. The most dramatic reduction in public spending that has ever been imposed on Scotland by the United Kingdom Government has resulted in a 6.7 per cent real-terms decrease in the Scottish Government’s resource budget since 2010-11. However, in the face of such cuts, there has been a real-terms increase in the health resource budget of 3.5 per cent over the same period, and we have delivered on our manifesto commitment to pass on the Barnett resource consequentials to health in full.
In 2015-16, the health budget will, for the first time, rise to more than £12 billion, and there will be a real-terms increase in the total health budget from 2014-15 to 2015-16. In 2015-16, territorial boards will receive allocation increases of 2.7 per cent. That increase is above forecast inflation, which reflects the importance that we attach to protecting front-line point-of-care services. Boards such as NHS Grampian and NHS Highland that are behind the NHS Scotland resource allocation committee parity level will receive an uplift above the 2.7 per cent average to reflect our plans to move all boards to within 1 per cent of NRAC parity by 2016-17, based on the current NRAC shares.
Furthermore, over and above the full resource consequentials of £202 million that are being passed on to the national health service, £53.5 million has been added to the integration fund and a further £32 million has been added to the previously published capital budget to support the continued investment in NHS Scotland infrastructure. The new south Glasgow hospitals project will open in summer 2015 on time and on budget, while continued focus on the maintenance of NHS Scotland’s estate and equipment will be supplemented by the progression of projects such as the Royal hospital for sick children in Edinburgh and the NHS Dumfries and Galloway acute services redevelopment, which are being funded through the non-profit-distributing and hub models.
The Scottish Government remains committed to publicly funded healthcare services, for the people of Scotland, that contribute to growth in the Scottish economy. The contrast between Scotland’s approach to the health service based on its founding principles and the competition and privatisation that are being introduced in England is growing ever more pronounced. Our record of achievement is recognised internationally as being innovative and aspirational in both its scope and its potential to improve health and healthcare. For example, Scotland is now regarded as a world leader in patient safety.
However, I recognise that serious challenges lie ahead and that we must ensure that we develop our plans to meet the changing needs of the people of Scotland. That is why, in the new year, we will publish an update to our 2020 vision and why, in 2015-16 and beyond we will, first, increase the role of primary care through a focus on keeping people healthy in the community for as long as possible. Secondly, we will integrate health and social care as part of the Scottish Government’s commitment to public service reform. Thirdly, we will further improve the quality of care that we provide through the healthcare quality strategy and fourthly, we will focus on reducing health inequalities—in particular, in the context of benefit cuts that will have the greatest impact on people who are at risk of ill health.
For 2015-16, spending will be prioritised on further improving the quality of care that we provide, improving the health of the population and securing the value and financial sustainability of the health and care services that we provide. That is the approach that we have taken in the health and wellbeing portfolio as detailed in the 2015-16 draft budget, which I commend to the committee.
I am happy to answer any questions that the committee might have, convener.