Hansard

Thank you, Presiding Officer. I offer my congratulations on your new position. I offer my congratulations also to new members on the quality of their maiden speeches over the past few weeks.

I pay tribute to the members of the former West of Scotland region who stood down at the election or were not returned to the Parliament, in particular, Irene Oldfather. She was on the European and External Relations Committee and its predecessor committees during all her time at Holyrood and she was that committee’s convener for two sessions. Irene also sat on the cross-party group on Alzheimer’s. I thank her, on behalf of the people of Cunninghame South, for her stoic work over the past 12 years.

I am proud to have been elected to represent West Scotland in the Scottish Parliament and I thank the voters for their support. I have served as a councillor for Kilwinning in Labour-held North Ayrshire for the past 12 years. It has been a great privilege to represent Kilwinning, and the people in that area will always have a special place in my heart. Sadly, though, the west of Scotland is an area that has entrenched social deprivation and health inequalities. In the area where I live, the data that we are presented with is frightening. For example, a man living in the deprived area of Fullerton in Irvine has an average life expectancy of just 74 years, while another man living just 14 miles along the road in the more affluent area of Fairlie can expect to live eight years longer. That is one of many grim examples of social deprivation in Scotland that demonstrates that the people who are still most likely to suffer from NHS cuts are the very poorest in our society.

No one can doubt the commitment of NHS staff to the health and wellbeing of the people of Ayrshire and Arran, but over the past four years I have found that those staff have continuously been hampered by a Scottish Government in Edinburgh that has not shown the same level of commitment to tackling health inequalities. After an enlightening presentation from Dr Harry Burns, the Scottish Government’s chief medical officer, North Ayrshire Council was reassured that we were justified in making a significant investment in early years intervention as well as taking greater steps to promote preventative healthcare. Those measures include providing 210 priority nursery places through our early years partnership programme, including 80 day-care places for the most vulnerable children in the area. We are ensuring that 100 per cent of looked-after children are given health assessments and we are delivering an increase in health-enhancing behaviours such as walking, cycling and swimming through our healthy futures project.

Those first steps in tackling health inequalities are encouraging, but they are only the first steps. Gastric bands and heart bypasses are not the cure for obesity and heart disease; they are reactive treatments. We need preventative measures and early intervention.

The health secretary might boast that her party is protecting the NHS from the worst of the cuts, but in North Ayrshire we are painfully aware of the squeeze on health spending. The NHS in Scotland has had to cope with a real-terms reduction in health spending, which is a poor settlement for health boards when set against the SNP’s promise to protect their budgets. It might be uncomfortable for SNP members to accept, but the NHS in Scotland is now experiencing its worst financial settlement since devolution.

To compound the difficulties that we in Ayrshire are facing, the introduction of the NHS Scotland resource allocation committee—NRAC—formula, which is the new mechanism that decides the proportion of funding for health boards in Scotland, means that we are looking at a smaller share of funding. That lack of funding is partly because the formula no longer accounts for unemployment and deprivation, so it disproportionately discriminates against poorer areas such as the Ayrshire and Arran NHS Board and Greater Glasgow and Clyde NHS Board areas. Despite having the largest island in Scotland—Arran—and the Cumbrae isles, NHS Ayrshire and Arran is not entitled to the same island adjustment as Highland, Western Isles, Orkney and Shetland health boards. It seems that, although Arran is an island, it is not enough of an island. I ask the cabinet secretary to instruct the NRAC technical committee to review the formula for allocating funding to ensure a more equal and fair share for the health boards in the west of Scotland.

To take Scotland forward, we must eradicate the inequalities in our society. I call on the cabinet secretary to work with all members to achieve that aim. If we do, we will see a better and healthier Scotland.

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