{"id":521811,"date":"2026-04-09T17:25:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T17:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/521811\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T17:25:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T17:25:10","slug":"scottish-parliament-election-2026-nhs-funding-and-support-for-islanders-highlighted-in-election-campaigning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/521811\/","title":{"rendered":"Scottish Parliament election 2026: NHS funding and support for islanders highlighted in election campaigning"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.files.bbci.co.uk\/core\/website\/assets\/static\/news\/incident-types\/light-mode\/bbc-verify.bac8ff232a.svg\" alt=\"BBC Verify\" height=\"2.5rem\" width=\"11.6875rem\" draggable=\"false\" class=\"ssrcss-901ql1-ContributorImageComponent e2hr5uu0\"\/>Are the parties being realistic about challenges facing services in Scotland?published at 16:45 BST<\/p>\n<p>16:45 BST<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-fxb76l-Paragraph e14e9ror4\">BBC Scotland: Phil Sim<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Political leaders are debating NHS funding today &#8211; but are any of<br \/>\nthem being realistic about the challenges facing Scottish services?<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In this year&#8217;s Scottish budget, health and social care was handed<br \/>\na small increase in funding &#8211; about 0.7% in real terms compared to the previous<br \/>\nyear, <a href=\"https:\/\/fiscalcommission.scot\/publications\/scotlands-economic-and-fiscal-forecasts-january-2026\/\" class=\"ssrcss-ztter6-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">according to the Scottish Fiscal Commission, external<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But at the same time, ministers have agreed pay deals with a<br \/>\nnumber of groups &#8211; 3.7% this year for staff including nurses, paramedics and<br \/>\nmidwives, and a deal equivalent to 9.4% for resident doctors.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">This has avoided strikes by healthcare staff of the sort seen in<br \/>\nEngland &#8211; but given public sector pay accounts for just over 50% of the<br \/>\nScottish budget, it bears a financial burden.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">David Phillips of the Institute for Fiscal Studies suggested on<br \/>\nhis <a href=\"https:\/\/ifs.org.uk\/articles\/what-does-election-mean-scotlands-future\" class=\"ssrcss-ztter6-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">organisation\u2019s podcast that whoever wins the election will have been dealta \u201creally poor hand\u201d, external<\/a> and may find themselves having to make cuts elsewhere to<br \/>\n\u201ctop up\u201d the NHS budget in light of the pay deals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">And Mairi Spowage of the Fraser of Allander Institute said the<br \/>\nnext government will face a \u201creckoning\u201d about its finances, with many problems<br \/>\nhaving been \u201cstored up\u201d ahead of the budget which needs to be drawn up at the<br \/>\nend of this year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">She said: \u201cWe have to accept in Scotland that we can\u2019t afford to<br \/>\ndeliver all the services we\u2019re delivering right now. It\u2019s not about keeping it<br \/>\nthe same &#8211; we need to make a change either in how we\u2019re delivering services, or<br \/>\nthe extent of the services delivered.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Are the parties being realistic about challenges facing services in Scotland?published at 16:45 BST 16:45 BST BBC Scotland:&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":521812,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-521811","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-greatbritain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=521811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/521812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}