The Scottish Labour Party says Scotland's 14 NHS boards should be reduced to three to redirect resources from duplicated administration and systems, to patient care.

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, in a New Year speech earlier today, promised reform of public services, saying Labour's priority would be “to fix Scotland's NHS and social care system” and bring it "into the 21st-century".

The Scottish government has a long-term commitment, made in two successive manifestos, to review the structure and function of the NHS in Scotland.

Last month, in her budget statement, Deputy First Minister Shona Robison indicated that a national conversation on Scotland's NHS will begin this year.

Yesterday, Labour's mental health spokesperson, Paul Sweeney revealed that his party's preference is for three large regional NHS bodies. He told BBC Scotland's Sunday Show that restructuring from the current 14 boards will be fundamental to helping the NHS meet the waiting time and staffing challenges it currently faces:

“Fourteen at present is way too many for a country of five and a half million people. We’re talking about bringing that down to three so that systems speak to each other, staff are easily re-resourced, so that we can share technology and procurement. Because right now it's just that a bit of a mess. You hear that constantly.”

The Scottish Conservatives say they too support a review. However, their health spokesperson Sandesh Gulhane said his concern is that losing smaller boards could mean the NHS in Scotland's cities dominating decisions that also affect more rural neighbouring areas:

“What I don't want to see is a big urban centre like Edinburgh, for example, pull all the thoughts and all the weight and all the money because they'd be joined up with some rural areas and those rural areas might see a decrease in their service provision.”

Although the Scottish government has a commitment to looking at how the NHS in Scotland is organised, Minister for Social Care, Maree Todd told the programme that the NHS is already well-resourced under the current 14 board structure:

“We have more acute beds per head of population than they do in the rest of the UK. We have more doctors and nurses and all healthcare professionals per head of population than they do in the rest of the UK. Our health professionals are paid more than they are in the rest of the UK.”

There is precedent for creating three regional NHS bodies in Scotland.

Scotland has three NHS regional planning groups and three cancer networks for the North (the Highlands, Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles, Tayside and Grampian), West (NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Lanarkshire, Forth Valley and the south west of Scotland boards) and East (NHS Lothian, Fife and the Borders).

Read more: Government to launch ‘conversation’ on future NHS; Urgent workforce reforms needed for Scotland’s NHS; Joint pharmacy project cuts adverse events;

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