More than £22billion will be spent on health and social care in Scotland this year.
When it comes to public spending, the NHS is by far and away the biggest recipient. And yet, this is not a health service swimming in cash. Far from it.
Instead, the SNP Government last week announced it could not afford to sign-off a plan drawn up by NHS Lanarkshire to build a long-awaited replacement for the crumbling Monklands hospital in Airdrie.
Nationalists are at pains to point out they remain committed to building a new hospital to serve the towns of Coatbridge and Airdrie, and their surrounding villages, a sizeable urban area that contains some of the poorest communities in Scotland. But the fact is a plan was drawn up and has now been scrapped. That means it will take even longer to complete. Sometime in the early 2030s now remains an optimistic ambition.
We now learn that NHS Lanarkshire spent £42million between February 2024 and October last year drawing up the plans which were last week dismissed as unaffordable by Angela Constance, the new Health Secretary. She has ordered a complete redesign, in a desperate effort to bring down the project’s costs.
How much of the £42million has been completely wasted remains to be seen. But it seems scarcely believable that so much money can effectively written off at a time the NHS is already struggling to deliver basic services.
The Monklands replacement project is fact becoming a debacle for the SNP.
View 2 ImagesScotland’s Kieran Tierney leaving the team hotel in Charlotte, North Carolina.(Image: Andrew Milligan/PA Wire)
Steve Clarke deserves the thanks of football fans across Scotland. He oversaw the return of the men’s national side to the big time after decades in the wilderness.
Qualification for three major tournaments in a row is a real achievement, given how low Scotland had fallenin the international rankings. Clarke’s decision to walk away after his team failed to qualify for the knockout round of the World Cup caught some by surprise.
He had, after all, just signed a new four-year deal only a few weeks ago. The SFA was clearly happy for him to lead the team in the build-up to Euro 2028, a tournament that will be co-hosted by Scotland.
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But Clarke has clearly heard the growing number of critics who felt Scotland underperformed in the US. Few expected a win against Brazil, but the lack of fight was clear to see. For Clarke and the team, it’s time for a new beginning.
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