16 September 2005
Scottish Executive ministers have admitted that NHS hospitals are delivering less to patients, in spite of billions of pounds of investment.
The admission came in a report this week to the Scottish Parliament's audit committee. The Executive was responding to concerns voiced by the committee over the financial performance of the NHS in Scotland in 2003/04, as revealed by a report from the auditor general for Scotland.
The budget for health and community care is £8.7bn, compared with £6.6bn in 2002/03. However, the committee said it was concerned that some key service areas may cost more and deliver less.
It stated: 'The decline in activity is particularly concerning given the high levels of investment in recent years.'
In its response, the Executive did not dispute that view. 'The department shares the committee's concerns about the apparent decline in activity set against the high levels of investment, and increased staff resources,' it said.
However, the Executive pointed out that some activity — for example in primary care — was growing and was likely to be under-recorded.
Health Minister Andy Kerr claimed the decline in hospital-based work was due to more treatment being carried out in local hospitals and GP surgeries. 'Whatever the statistics say, Scotland's health is getting better and so is our health service,' he insisted.
The Executive also agreed with the committee's further concern about poor-quality management information, which had not kept pace with developments. The Executive said this was one reason for carrying out a review of statistics for health.
The Scottish National Party argued that one of the problems of the funding system was that it 'offers too few incentives to hospital managers to do more and to do it more efficiently.'
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