16-year-olds to get vote on health boards

Published on Thursday 12 March 2009 20:55

MSPs last night approved plans for the first direct elections to health boards.

The Health Board (Membership and Elections) Bill will also see 16- and 17-year-olds being able to vote in elections for the first time.

Nicola Sturgeon, the health secretary, welcomed the move as a "boost for democracy".

The public will now be able to stand for and vote in health board elections for the first time next year in two yet-to-be-chosen pilot areas.

The results will be studied before Holyrood decides whether to extend them.

"Elected health boards will give power back to local people," Ms Sturgeon said. "They represent a major boost for democracy and accountability.

"They are the best way of ensuring that boards will no longer be able to ride roughshod over community opinion, as has happened in the past. The voices of people whose taxes pay for the NHS will now have to be listened to and acted upon."

Elected members – including councillors and those directly elected by the public – will form a majority of health board members. The remainder will be health service professionals.