NHS Scotland: how much is being spent?

“We have regularly increased investment in the Health Service since the Scottish Government came to power. Investment in the Health Service has gone up £4 billion to £13 billion.”

Fiona Hyslop MSP, 25 January 2018

The Scottish government told us that Ms Hyslop was referring to the increase in health spending in Scotland since the year before the first SNP minority government came to power in 2007.

At that time day-to-day spending on health was budgeted at just under £9.1 billion. In 2018/19 it is budgeted to be over £13.1 billion. That’s a difference of about £4 billion, but these figures don’t account for projected inflation over that time.

If you factor that in then the difference is half that at £2 billion.

That spending hasn’t happened yet. These figures are projections for future spending. Spending for this year suggests the increase since 2006/07 is slightly less than £2 billion so far.

Health is a devolved area in Scotland, and the Scottish government decides exactly how much money is going to go into the NHS budget each year.

The Scottish government’s budget is made up of three components: money it receives through the block grant from the UK government, money raised through taxes in Scotland (and collected by the Scottish government directly), and money raised through borrowing.