What do you think about the SNP merging NHS regions into just 2 ?

[FortnamsTea]

Will this improve things / even out inequalities?
Hard to know. I'm surprised they've not followed the Ambulance areas though?

I hope it will help.
I had issues with blood test results being viewed by Greater Glasgow when they'd been done in Lanarkshire because they were on a different IT system, so if it addresses things like that it will be useful.

I hope it reduces the number of managers and enables front line staff to help more people. I wonder if a single Health Board would be even better.

Most likely it will mean more. And some nurses fired to pay for it.

Well it worked so well with the police …

Apparently Swinney has said there will be no compulsory redundancies. I thought the whole point was to save money? How are you going to do that if you don’t make people redundant? Surely we don’t need 2 heads of HR etc?

I don’t know what to think really. Past experience shows it’s likely to be worse for everyone.

theoretically it could be a good thing but we’ll have to wait and see.

It might help to even out the massive difference in services and care between the boards, sadly that will probably mean the good levels down rather than the bad levelling up.

Voluntary redundancy, recruitment freeze/not replacing staff who retire/leave for other jobs.

The merging of health boards has been disastrous in Wales. Just Google Betsi Cadwaladr health board.

It sounds like it’s going to be a total nightmare for ambulances.

Voluntary redundancy just means the good staff that can get jobs elsewhere leave. Waiting for people to retire? Thats bonkers. There’s a reason why private sector firms use compulsory redundancy - because it’s definitely the most financially effective way to reduce staff.

The Scottish Ambulance Service is already a single national organisation.

Think it would take 10 years to see benefits given how long it would take to integrate from a people and tech perspective. I’d be suspicious too that it’s not going to be best of breed but cuts through the back door in the name of standardisation.

Surely the new health boards will end up covering such a wide range of different areas - from deprived urban areas to remote Highlands and Islands, and they will struggle to balance their widely differing needs?

It will be another utterly appalling disaster just like all their other crackpot ideas.
They have well and truly ruined Scotland.

Exactly this!

There is zero detail on this publicly available - doesn't seem to have been thought through at all. Integrating IT across boards is a massive undertaking - can't see that happening quickly & would be expensive. Sounds like a totally pointless exercise which will create another layer of management.

Exactly what I came here to say…it’s been such a raging success hasn’t it…NOT

I hate myself for saying this as in general I’m a huge supporter of worker’s rights and collective unions but any restructuring of the NHS is going to be a mess because it has become unmanageable.

It seems to be our last ‘sacred cow’ that politicians are scared to criticise due to the public backlash they will receive.

The reality is that as an organisation it is completely inefficient and underperformance is rife at all levels.

Swinney’s plans are a start but they will be stymied at every opportunity.

I'm not hopeful based on all past endeavours that the SNP have done. And I say this as someone who works within the public sector. Not in the NHS, but basically there's no real accountability for anything in Scotland public sector. I actually want it to succeed but I don't think the SNP and all the people who work for them are in any way competent enough to do this.

Voluntary redundancies.

No need to be so melodramatic.

I love my baby box and free prescriptions 😍

For every 1,000 people there are 29.6 SNHS employees compared to 23.3 in England. And salaries are much higher in Scotland compared to England despite the cost of living being cheaper here. This is a large reason why we have a £5bn deficit coming down the tracks, and a large part of why Scotlands NHS underperforms England. All the increase in SNHS funding goes on pay rises here. In England it goes on improving services too.

We need to drastically reduce headcount and pay.

This is exactly what I thought as well. I worry rural areas are just going to be left behind.

Voluntary redundancies get rid of the people who can get jobs elsewhere. Those that have fewer options stay.