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?

Having worked briefly in the SNHS and seen the state of the IT systems in one tiny part, the whole thing needs burned to the ground.

Actually, might be better off going back to paper files.

It seems a bit of a drastic way of getting rid of NHS Fife and their big bills.

Things like Equality should be national not every health board looking at what the rest are doing and copy

To answer the original question.

There is such a disparity of care across the country (especially in places like the Highlands who have very little access to certain specialties and recruitment is a challenge) I wish this would help country wide.

What I feel will happen in a single service is the money/provision is pulled massively in the direction of the central belt. The current regions don’t really allow that to happen but I feel in a single NHS this would inevitable.

The NHS needs a major overhaul and this is a potentially ambitious start. I do think that areas such as Highland and Argyll and Bute should have been considered for individual arrangements such the islands as their geography and demographics have very specific difficulties, but overall I think it might be a good thing. Not going to be easy though!

Why two?
Whats it to be -Glasgow,Edinburgh and the rest can take pot luck

East and West apparently? Not sure how that’s going to work.

I think it’s going to be a disaster for rural areas.

The east west split will be dominated by Greater Glasgow and Lothian. The staff in rural areas are generally older and gagging for voluntary redundancy. For “youngsters” like me I can see the specialisms being centralised, rural areas will be left like cottage hospitals with a basic A&E and maternity services. Anything beyond stabilisation or minor level will be referred to urban centres or air ambulanced there. The vast majority of our births are already referred to Aberdeen.

Ultimately it will lead to rural depopulation - the good jobs will be in the central belt. It’s what’s happened to the police.

In Shetland we’re working in a crumbling hospital, with buckets and internal scaffolding that even the SNP say is not fit for purpose, but there is no plans to replace. I think that says a lot about their ambition for rural healthcare here.

I am not sure that this will make things better.

The financial situation generally isn't great is it

Health boards reliant on loans and financially unsustainable | Audit Scotland https://share.google/ZdP4zLC2hnDM7jpuR by

And look how much money was wasted on a hospital, that SNP bragged about then cancelled 2mins after the election.

There is no mention of how this will work with the Joint Health and Social Care Partnerships that were put in place to join up NHS and Councils social care.

Because as usual its a half thought out hair brained SNP idea.

Given they behave like each county is a different country and won’t send letters from hospitals to your gp if you are being treated in a different county which is actually nearer than your “local” hospital and give causes no end of trouble then I don’t know why they can’t just behave like Scotland is one country instead of split up into multiple ones!

As someone who now lives in the BCUHB area I agree wholeheartedly!

This can’t be right!

There’s plenty of money to be spent on legal fees defending breaches of equality law and negligence.

There’s talk of Dundee rather than Edinburgh

The HSCPs are often not coterminous with health board boundaries, so this might actually help.

Nurses being 'fired'. Interested to hear what you have based that on.

given that John Swinney said in his speech that they wanted to find a new solution for social care and that the most likely outcome was a direct line to health in terms of decision-making I can't see how HSCPs can continue to exist...

councils are due to be reshaped as well. and in an incredibly short timescale as he wants it done for the next budget (i.e. mid December).

This. The people that need binned won’t be!!

In a rational work this is 100% correct.

However in a SNP world the reduction is probably based on ideology that has not been fully thought through.

it does of course allow non performing health boards to be subsidised from performing boards.

I welcome the change. The country isn’t big enough for so many health boards and councils. We need one health board and council to cover the whole of Scotland

in fact if I was taking it a step further I wonder how much devolution costs us. 4 parliaments for a start. And always someone else to blame when things go wrong.

Reduce the layers and increase the accountability,