Plans for £200m NHS cuts attacked

FIGURES revealing that NHS boards plan to make “savings” of more than £200 million this year are a “nail in the coffin” of the Scottish Government’s vow to protect the health service, according to Labour.

The party’s health spokeswoman, Jackie Baillie MSP, said SNP ministers were “out of touch with the pain they are inflicting” on local NHS services.

A survey of the country’s 22 NHS boards discovered they were planning to save a total of £256.3m in 2012-13. The 14 territorial health boards, which provide services in different regions, are looking to make reductions totalling £226.7m, according to the figures which emerged last week.

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The country’s eight special health boards are also looking to save £29.6m between them, with the Scottish Ambulance Service proposing savings of £7.1m, while NHS24 wants to save £1.7m.

The figures were revealed in a survey of NHS boards for Holyrood’s Health and Sport Committee. Labour pointed to a speech given by Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon in October 2010, in which she said Scottish ministers would “do everything in our power to protect front-line services”.

Baillie said: “This is yet another nail in the coffin of the SNP government’s promise that they would protect the health service.

“The cold, hard reality is that across Scotland, health boards are being forced to make multi-million-pound cuts because of SNP budget decisions.”

A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “This government is committed to protecting health spending.”