BMA Scotland Responds To Sturgeon Statement On Future NHS Service Change Proposals

Following the statement made by Nicola Sturgeon, Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing, in which she set out the Government’s position on future NHS service change proposals, Dr Peter Terry, Chairman of BMA Scotland, said:

“The BMA supports the principal that care should be as local as possible but as specialised as necessary. We strongly believe that the principle key factor in any decision is a well staffed service that is high in quality and safe for patients. NHS plans based on political expediency in response to local pressures will not improve patient care. We therefore welcome the Cabinet Secretary’s recognition that local views will be balanced with clinical considerations, sustainability, safety and value for money.

“NHS boards need to find ways to demonstrate that patients will not lose out if changes to the way services are delivered are to be introduced. The BMA has called for improvements to involve local community and local clinicians in consultations and we look forward to further details on the independent scrutiny panel that will hopefully help this process.

“This is an important year for the NHS in Scotland. The 10 year strategy was outlined in Delivering for Health and the focus for 2007 and beyond must be to implement many of its proposals. The strategy states that a systematic approach should be applied to the decision making process regarding the organisation of NHS Scotland including the sighting of specialist services.

“We welcome the Scottish Executive’s commitment to the strategy and ask all elected MSPs to affirm their commitment to this systematic approach. We confirm our previous view that the Kerr report is a package and there is a danger that any deconstruction to this report would lead us back to ad-hoc arrangements which have proved so unsatisfactory in the past rather than long-term planning to the benefit of the whole population of Scotland.”