NICOLA Sturgeon yesterday pledged to cut the number of senior NHS managers in Scotland by one-quarter over the next four years.
Sturgeon was speaking to the SNP conference yesterday
More than 300 of the 1,240 highest-earning NHS white collar posts in Scotland will go if the SNP return to power next year.
The Health Secretary said the reduction in the number of bureaucrats earning between £50,000 and £160,000 would save £25 million in 2011/12 resulting in a total saving of around £70 million over the next parliamentary term.
The SNP calculate that most of the posts can be shed through “natural wastage” and has promised that there will be no compulsory redundancies.
The new policy, which has been forced on the SNP by the economic crisis is part of a plan to save £40 million in non-clinical areas of the NHS in the first year of a new parliament.
Over the four years of the next term that annual saving is expected to rise, reaching £100 million in the fourth and final year.
Addressing SNP delegates at the party’s conference yesterday, Sturgeon said: “Over the lifetime of the next parliament, health boards will be expected to cut the number of senior managers by 25 per cent.
“Not because we don’t value the work that managers do, but because when budgets are tight we must spend every penny that we possibly can directly on patient care. That saving, together with other non-clinical efficiency savings, will release more than £100 million a year – money that will help to protect services, ensure the highest quality of patient care and protect the fundamental values of our NHS.”
The extra savings will come from cutting the £1 billion annual drug procurement budget, making cuts in NHS administration and merging departments that fulfil similar functions.
In her speech at the Perth Concert Hall, Sturgeon pledged that the savings would be ploughed back into frontline services. She also renewed her commitment to increase the Scottish health budget in line with the rises promised by the coalition government south of the border.
Sturgeon said: “At a time when our revenue budget overall is facing significant cash cuts, there will be no revenue cash cuts for our NHS. Instead funding for our NHS will rise in line with the commitment we have given.”
Her pledge to protect the Scottish health budget from the cuts that will be unleashed by the Tory-Lib Dem coalition Government this week was another attempt to draw a dividing line between the SNP and Labour.
Sturgeon claimed that Labour would cut the NHS budget in Scotland, adding: “With policies like those, Labour is not fit to be in opposition let alone government. Labour may duck and dive but our commitment is crystal clear – the SNP will protect the National Health Service.”
The Health Secretary also pledged to reject the UK Government’s plans to reform the NHS south of the border, pledging that the private sector had no place in healthcare.
“That is not the Scottish way,” she said.
“So let me be clear, we will stop the Tory privatisation of the National Health Service at the border.”
She defended the SNP’s record on health, saying that waiting times had fallen and the number of life-threatening C-difficile cases had fallen by 60 per cent.
“Mark my words,” she said. “As long as we are in government, there will be no return to the bad old days of long waits for operations.”
The crack-down on NHS bureaucracy follows Sturgeon’s commitment to abolish prescription charges and the SNP’s pledge to freeze council tax for a further two years if the party returns to power.
Sturgeon, the SNP depute leader and Deputy First Minister, also used her address to attack her rivals, seeking to contrast SNP leader Alex Salmond with his Labour counterpart Iain Gray.
The two men will be competing to be First Minister in the Holyrood election, but Sturgeon claimed the Nationalist leader was “in a different league to those of the other parties”.
She told delegates that “the last thing, the very last thing” Scotland needed was Iain Gray as First Minister.
Sturgeon added: “This country needs a leader who is up to the job – so let us re-elect Alex Salmond as Scotland’s First Minister.”
Today, Alex will suggest that the SNP has wrested the initiative from Labour when he makes his speech at a conference that saw the Nationalists launch their campaign for next year’s Scottish election.
The First Minister will say that “the SNP working together with the people of Scotland” can steer Scotland through the tough times with credibility, experience and success in government.
Only the SNP can offer the way through the “Westminster-imposed cuts” with independence offering the prospect of the financial powers needed for recovery, he will add.
“Either Scotland stays in the Westminster straightjacket of low growth, public sector cutbacks and blighted futures – or we take responsibility and change our circumstances for the better.”
Source: Scotland On Sunday