SPENDING on health and sport in Scotland is to exceed £13bn for the first time - but the extra money came with a stark warning about the future.

The budget statement for 2016-17 promised NHS boards a 5.5% increase in funding with a clear message from Finance Secretary John Swinney that the additional cash must be used to reform the way care is delivered.

He said: "The nature and scale of the challenges facing our NHS, in particular the challenge of an ageing population, mean that additional money alone will not equip it properly for the future. It will not cope with the pressure that it faces. To really protect our NHS we need to do more than give it extra money. We need to use that money to deliver fundamental reform and change the way our NHS delivers care."

While some might say the SNP government has stood in the way of some NHS reforms - blocking the centralisation of hospital services - they are taking the big step of combining NHS and social care budgets under new joint boards from next April.

The budget statement says £250m is to be directed towards these boards to improve outcomes in social care. There's also £45m to help reform the way GP surgeries and linked care services work.

The spending forecast document reads: "By contrast with the UK Government we see health and social care as parts of the same interdependent system, and so, through this budget, we will protect both NHS and social care spending."

Not everyone will agree with this claim. Mr Swinney used his statement to confirm that he is maintaining a council tax freeze and opposition politicians have attacked him for cutting local authority funding by £300m, saying this will hit elderly care.

With the annual rate of inflation in the NHS sometimes quoted as around 4%, the 5.5% uplift for health board budgets will be welcomed. Mr Swinney also promised real terms increases in the health budget for the duration of the next parliamentary term if the SNP is re-elected to power in May.

But, as his own words hint, a key question is whether the extra money is enough to both keep pace with rising demand from the growing frail elderly population and change the way people are looked after to ensure the bills don't ultimately become impossible to pay.