Highlands and Islands MSP Jamie Halcro Johnston has warned that Scottish Labour’s plans to centralise health boards will take local health services out of local control.
Following the Scottish Labour Party conference, the Conservative MSP rejected Labour proposals to merge Scotland’s 14 existing territorial health boards into just three super-boards.
Mr Halcro Johnston pointed to the Highlands and Islands as an example of where centralisation would hit local services and local accountability.
Jamie Halcro Johnston said:
“Merging all the health boards - not only in the Highlands and Islands, but the entire north of Scotland - into one would mean more centralisation and less accountability locally.
“Delivering healthcare in Inverness and across the Highlands is very different to delivering it in Aberdeen and Grampian. And the island health boards, while small, reflect the unique challenges of providing a consistent service to these communities; something Labour’s plans ignore.
“Put simply: when they make decisions, the priority of a local health board like NHS Orkney should be patients in Orkney. If there is no local health board, and decisions are made elsewhere, that focus is lost.
“Even within NHS Highland as it currently is, local communities across the area have already seen vital health services cut back or lost entirely, with an increasing centralisation in Inverness or even further south.
“That means patients having to travel further – sometimes in emergency conditions – to access services they used to be able to rely on locally.
“For well over a century, there have been bodies in place to support healthcare in the Highlands and Islands and overcome the challenges that our region’s geography throws up. It was the Highlands and Islands Medical Service, established in 1913, that set the blueprint for the NHS across Britain. It is unimaginable that this should be swept away and replaced with some general north of Scotland NHS.
“Scottish Labour are calling this ‘cutting red tape’ – but what they are really proposing is more centralised administration, more control from Edinburgh and more of the one-size-fits-all approach that has been so damaging to our region in the past.
“Anas Sarwar should be focusing on supporting the Highlands and Islands and our public services, not looking at axing our local NHS boards just to save a bit of cash.
“People across the Highlands and Islands want to see more health services improved and delivered locally. Labour’s plans threaten the very opposite.”
