Meeting of the Parliament 02 May 2018
Miles Briggs is absolutely right. I want to eradicate delayed discharge, but it is a difficult thing to do. He alluded to some of the challenges earlier on. Integration joint boards work hard, but there is huge variation in performance on the matter. For example, delay has almost been eradicated in Glasgow, whereas in areas such as Edinburgh it has not. A new chief officer is in place who will do a fantastic job in that domain. I do not underestimate the scale of the problem, and good ideas are always welcome, wherever in the chamber they come from.
On investment in the NHS and care services, I turn to the financial issues in the motion. I am more than happy to address them. Ensuring that there are sufficient resources in the NHS is something that I do every day. The Scottish Government’s budget for 2018-19, supported by the Greens, delivered additional investment in health of more than £400 million. That takes the resource budget to £13.1 billion. The Government remains on track to deliver its commitment to increase health resource spending by £2 billion by the end of this parliamentary session.
It is clear that that level of investment has been made possible without impacting on other public services only through the progressive tax policies that we have implemented. Health spending has been £360 million more than inflation since 2016-17. Had we not taken the budget decisions that we have done, the resources that are available to our health and care services would have been considerably less.