Leader: Health funding

THE time has surely come when the funding of health services in the Lothians needs to be reviewed by the Scottish Government.

The way in which resources are divided between health board areas by the NHS Scotland Resource Allocation Committee has long been a bone of contention in the Capital.

The amount which NHS Lothian receives is currently 70 million a year less than what it might get under an alternative model which recognises the huge rise in the number of people living in and around the Capital.

Lothian has seen the highest population growth of any health board area - five per cent - over the last decade and official projections suggest that trend will continue over the next 10 years. That is a situation which cannot go on without being properly recognised.

The feeling that Edinburgh is getting a raw deal - exacerbated by the struggle to win full capital funding for the new Sick Kids project - has been further fuelled by the injustice created by the recent rates revaluation exercise.

The 38 per cent, or 5m, increase being demanded of NHS Lothian is a stark contrast to the next worst affected region, Grampian, whose charges have risen by just 14 per cent.

These issues are of course all the more pressing at a time when every penny counts for public services. If that 5m, for instance, were left in the health boards' hands rather than siphoned off into a central Government pot, it would be enough to protect the jobs of 180 local nurses.

No one is suggesting there is a hidden agenda against the Capital, far from it.

Health secretary Nicola Sturgeon recognised the city's unique pressures earlier this year by providing NHS Lothian with the biggest funding increase of any health board - an extra 3.14 per cent - taking its budget to more than 1 billion.

What is damaging the Capital is a piecemeal combination of circumstances, most particularly its rising population and some of Scotland's highest property prices, both products of its success.

But the combined impact of these factors needs to be assessed as a whole to properly understand the extent to which they are depriving Edinburgh of its fair share of national funds.

If that does not happen, the conviction that the Capital is not getting a decent deal will continue to fester.