NHS Scotland gets £10m to help with winter pressures

Funding to help with “particular pressures” of winter, such as health boards and the ambulance service, to prepare for unpredictable winter months.

NHS Scotland is to get an additional £10m cash boost to help cope with the winter months, the Health Secretary has announced.

Jeane Freeman, Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport, says that this money will be spent on health boards, the ambulance service, additional staff, and more beds in preparation for winter.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, NHS Scotland’s largest health board, is set to get the most of the funding, at £2.14m.

Freeman also hopes that the funding will help with discharging those who are well enough to leave hospitals on weekends and over the holidays.

“Winter creates particular pressures on our health and social care system, so it’s important we are all prepared,” Freeman said.

This funding boost comes at a time when public spending watchdog, Audit Scotland, stated on their annual report that NHS Scotland could face a £1.8b deficit if not reformed.

Richard Leonard, leader of Scottish Labour, has accused the Scottish government of mismanagement of NHS Scotland, stating they have been “asleep at the wheel” in the running of the health service with a “catalogue of missed targets that ministers have set for themselves.”

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has also made a number of pledges of NHS spending increases which would grant the Scottish government more funding for the health service if his health spending policies are passed and enacted.