Government ‘putting people at the heart of their care’, says Swinney

The Scottish Government is “putting people at the heart of their care”, the First Minister has said ahead of a funding announcement on Monday.

John Swinney will visit a hospital in Glasgow where he is expected to announce more money for reducing waiting times and increasing the number of appointments in the health service.

The Government has pledged to cut waits of over a year entirely by March.

While waiting times for treatment have decreased, according to figures released last week, more than 56,439 waits longer than a year were logged as of September 30 for outpatient procedures.

For inpatient and day case treatment, 29,417 waits were ongoing.

Speaking ahead of the visit, the First Minister said: “I am intensely focused on improving our NHS and our plan to tackle the longest waits is working.

“Not only are we seeing the total list size and longest waits come down, but we are also providing thousands of more procedures and appointments compared to the same time last year.

“We have provided more than £110 million of additional targeted funding already this year and this additional investment in health boards across Scotland will help drive further progress.

“Last week, we announced GP services will receive more than half a billion pounds of extra funding over the next three years to boost GP numbers and deliver the crucial capacity needed to improve services.

“We’re putting people at the heart of their care – prioritising services delivered in the right place at the right time.

“That is exactly the kind of support our NHS needs, and I thank all of our dedicated NHS staff across the country who are working so hard to bring forward the improvements we are seeing each day.”

Health Secretary Neil Gray said the funding Mr Swinney will announce will be a “substantial additional investment” to maintain and enhance progress in reducing waiting times.

He told BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme: “We have invested a record level in our NHS in the last budget, £21.7 billion, and as part of that we’re committing over £200 million to ensure that we are reducing waiting times and increasing activity and supporting better flow through our hospitals.

“The additional investment that the First Minister is setting out today is about increasing that further, to ensure that we are bringing down the longest waits, because it’s not acceptable for people to be waiting that long.”