Former SNP health secretary Michael Matheson warns slashing NHS boards alone won't boost outcomes
Mr Matheson said expecting it to do so was ‘fool’s gold’
A former SNP health secretary has warned John Swinney that slashing the number of NHS boards alone will not improve patient outcomes.
Michael Matheson said expecting it to do so was "fool's gold".
The First Minister has announced plans to replace the current 14 territorial health boards with two strategic health boards.
He said it would be "the most significant structural reform of the NHS in the era of devolution".
It forms part of a wider overhaul of the public sector that also aims to reform social care and reduce the number of councils.
But speaking on STV’s Scotland Tonight, Mr Matheson, who was health secretary under Humza Yousaf, stressed cutting health boards was only part of the answer.
"Any reform of the health service has got to start off with the principle of what improves outcomes for patients, and reducing the number of health boards can assist in achieving that but it will not achieve it in itself,” he said.
"There are three big areas that I think that they have to address as part of this wider reform package.
"The first is going to be in social care - to make sure that it's properly funded and there's a consistent approach across the country in order to deliver effective social care where it's needed.
"The second area is going to be in primary care. We need to expand the scope of what's provided within primary care.
"Too much goes on in our hospitals that could be happening within local primary care settings, so we need to expand that to see more activity taking place in the primary care space.
"And the third area is we need to also have an honest conversation that we are trying to provide too many services in too many of our hospitals that are just clinically unsustainable and don't have good clinical outcomes for patients, which means that we're going to have to look at regionalising some of these services in a way in order to help improve outcomes for patients."
He added: "Reorganisation of the health boards is only one part of the process of trying to reform our NHS to get better outcomes."
Pushed on whether Mr Swinney’s plans were the right thing to do, Mr Matheson said: "I don't know if two is the right number, or whether you should just simply go to one."
He added: "Part of the challenge you've always got in the health service is that it's so politicised that it's very difficult to actually get change, fundamental change to take place.
"But what I would say is if you think that changing the number of health boards from 14 to two is going to improve patients' outcomes, then in my view that's fool's gold and it won't deliver that for you."
Trade union leaders have accused Mr Swinney of setting out a "slash and burn programme" that will inevitably result in "swingeing cuts and thousands of job losses".
“Our members will not be the collateral damage for the Scottish government’s failings,” said Unite’s Sharon Graham.
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