SNP must not confuse greater NHS efficiency with cuts that damage the health service

Savings made by reducing bureaucracy should be spent bolstering frontline NHS services (Picture: Christopher Furlong) | Getty Images

One of the central problems of life in Scotland today is that we are paying historically high levels of tax and getting much less than we once did in return. Overlooked for far too long, this has become a serious problem that is undermining the social contract between the government and the governed.

Clearly, high taxation acts as a damper on economic growth. This can be offset, to a degree at least, by similarly high public spending – but only if it provides economically valuable functions, infrastructure and other assets.

The NHS is a case in point. We usually think about how it treats us and our relatives as individuals. But economists recognise the overall effect of keeping the population healthy and, therefore, in work. A healthy workforce is fundamental to a thriving and vibrant economy; a sickly one tends towards the opposite. Therefore, while the health service costs a lot of money, it can be worth it – if it is well spent.

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Cut wasteful spending

In recent years, NHS waiting lists have grown, and so too has the number of people on disability benefits. These two trends are not unconnected. The health service’s cost-benefit analysis no longer looks as rosy as it once did. However, given how high taxes are already, there is little room to raise them further in an attempt to fix its problems.

For some years now, the need to improve the efficiency of government, reduce unnecessary ‘gold-plated’ bureaucracy and cut wasteful spending has been clear. It has taken an age, but the SNP finally seem to have come round to this realisation, with plans to replace the 11 mainland health boards with just two and, as we report today, the possible abolition of social care boards, which have an annual budget of £13 billion.

Such radical change is not without risk, but needs must. With the Scottish Government facing a £5bn black hole in its finances, it has to save money and reducing the number of quangos is one way to do this. However, in relation to the NHS, the main aim should be to free up more funds for frontline services to restore them to the sort of level we once took for granted.

Scotland needs a well-educated and ‘fighting fit’ workforce if it is to prosper. If what the SNP is about to deliver turns out to simply be ‘cuts’ rather than ‘efficiencies’, the country’s problems are about to get substantially worse.