Question reference: S6W-10389
- Asked by: Alex Rowley, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
- Date lodged: 22 August 2022
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Current status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 20 September 2022
Question
To ask the Scottish Government what the cash value is of payments made to the private healthcare sector and independent providers of (a) healthcare and (b) social care in each of the last 10 years.
Answer
Scottish Ministers remain fully committed to a health service that provides timely, quality care, is free at the point of contact and true to the founding principles of the NHS. The creation of a National Care Service will bring social care in to parity of esteem with healthcare and end the postcode lottery of care provision to ensure that everyone can get the care they need across the country.
Our publicly owned and operated NHS in Scotland makes very limited use of the independent sector for targeted services and to supplement capacity, where necessary. Over the last 10 years, use of the independent sector by NHS Scotland has consistently represented less than 1% of total frontline spend, with spend in 2020-21 being just 0.5% of the total frontline health budget. This compares to 6.8% and 0.8% for NHS England and NHS Wales, respectively. Further detail on spend with independent providers for NHS Scotland is available in Health Boards’ accounts which are published annually on each Health Board’s website.
Social Care services are commissioned by Local Authorities and the information requested would require to be requested from them.