Independence for a healthy Scotland: Yes campaign focuses on national health service

Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond is focusing on the benefits that an independent Scotland could bring to the country's National Health Service.

 

Saving the Scottish NHS from the effects of an increased private sector role in the English health service is now a top priority for Salmond, according to the FT. 

 

The fact that the UK's health service could be privatised is concerning to many Scots, among whom free care is hugely popular. It is feared that such change could negatively affect Scotland's health budget. 

 

“The only guarantee – the only certain way of protecting our precious, publicly funded NHS – is independence,” Salmond said during a speech in Arbroath on Monday.

 

But a number of counter-arguments have been put forward against Salmond's assertion.

 

Labour member of Scottish parliament Malcolm Christian has described the argument as “the big lie on the NHS”, claiming nothing had implied that health reforms in England would lead to the removal of public money from Scotland. 

 

Anti-independence campaigners have argued that Edinburgh has enjoyed full control over health in Scotland since the creation of the Scottish parliament in 1999, and so independence is likely to have much of an impact given the autonomy it already enjoys.

 

Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown went so far as to suggest that independence would have a negative impact on Scotland's healthcare system, since it would threaten cross-border co-operation on organ and blood donations and the ability to send patients to access specialist services in England. 

 

 

Since political devolution in 1999, there has been increasing policy divergence between the health systems of the four countries in the United Kingdom.

 

A report released by the Nuffield Trust think tank and Health Foundation Charity shows that over the 15 years since devolution, the Scottish government has consistently spent more on healthcare per head than the English government has.

But it is possible to see from the graph above that spend per head has been increasing at an almost equal rate for all four countries in the UK, and that in the year 2012-2013, Scotland spent just £202 more per head than England. In fact, Northern Ireland spent almost exactly as much as Scotland did during this year, and will exceed it in expenditure in 2013/2014 if the current trend continues. 

 

The Nuffield Trust noted that there had been minimal overall difference in improvement to the healthcare systems. “There is little sign that one country is moving ahead consistently across the available indicators of performance,” it said.

 

 

Taking average life expectancy as an indicator of national health, Scotland lags behind England, Wales and the Northern Ireland.

 

Between 2009-2011, the Nuffield Trust recorded the average male life expectancy in Scotland as 76.1, and the average female life expectancy as 80.6. This was more than two years lower than the average life expectancies in England, which were 78.9 for men and 82.9 for women. 

 

Overall satisfaction with the NHS was slightly higher in Scotland than in England in 2011, according to the survey. 55 per cent of Scots were satisfied, compared with 53 per cent of those in England. However, both Wales and the North East of England reported higher satisfaction than Scotland. 

 

When narrowed down to satisfaction with GP performance, this was lower in Scotland than any of the other regions. In Scotland, GP satisfaction was 68 per cent, while in England it was 76 per cent.