The NHS in Scotland needs a fundamental review to help find more cash for patient care, a former health secretary said.
Alex Neil questioned whether Scotland’s 15 regional health boards all need to have their own finance directors and HR departments.
He was speaking after Auditor General for Scotland Caroline Gardner warned MSPs it is a “challenge” for the NHS to recruit and retain staff.
Recent reports from the public spending watchdog highlighted concerns about NHS Tayside and NHS Highlands – with leadership challenges amongst the issues raised.
READ MORE: Labour warns of 50 per cent rise in stress-related NHS sick leave
Ms Gardner said: “We are seeing it increasingly difficult not just to retain, but to recruit, to attract people to these jobs.”
The Auditor General said this is partly “because the jobs themselves are getting harder”, but also that “here in Scotland we do tend to pay less for those roles than the NHS in England does, which can make it difficult to recruit people externally”.
Mr Neil, who was health secretary for two years after taking over the job from Nicola Sturgeon in 2012, told the Public Audit Committee that a common theme in Audit Scotland reports on the NHS is “managerial weaknesses at every level”.
READ MORE: Labour promises to outspend the Tories with £26bn extra a year to 'rebuild' the NHS
The MSP added: “Has the time not come for a fairly fundamental review, at national level, of all aspects of the management of National Health Service in Scotland?
“We have 22 NHS boards, 15 of them covering territorial areas, including Highland and Tayside. Do we need 15 directors of finance in this day and age of the computer? Do we need 15 HR departments?
“This is a huge overhead. If we could save in that huge administrative overhead, it would free up some resource to go into medical and healthcare provision.
“Is it not time for a very fundamental look at the whole structure?
“If we don’t modernise the model of delivery we could be sitting here having these same conversations, in fact the situation might be even worse.”
Auditor General for Scotland Caroline Gardner (Andrew Cowan/Scottish Parliament/PA)
Ms Gardner told him: “The structure of the NHS is a matter for Government rather than me as Auditor General.”
But she added: “I do think that having the number of bodies that we do makes it harder to recruit, retain, develop the number of really high calibre people to do the jobs that are required.
“Running a health board is difficult in any circumstances but at a time when financial pressures are acute, and when we really do need to see that transformation to meet the needs of an ageing population, we need to make sure we are making the best use of the people with the skills and experience and capacity to do that.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here