Building a healthier Scotland
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《英国医生杂志》
The Scottish National Party wants to see adults and children swapping the crisp and couch for fruit, fibre, and physical jerks. Bryan Christie reports
Annual health checks for all school pupils, free fruit for pregnant women, and the development of rural hospitals are promised in the Scottish National Party's election manifesto to help make Scotland a healthier country. The party's health proposals are based around giving greater priority to the prevention of ill health while reshaping the NHS to improve local access and accountability.
Providing services over large and sparsely populated geographical areas has always been a challenge in Scotland. At the moment there are proposals to centralise many services, such as emergency departments and maternity care, by removing these from smaller hospitals. The Scottish National Party (SNP) says that it would reverse this trend by maintaining such core services at a local level.
Alex Salmond: "The SNP will focus on treating people... closer to home"
Credit: SCOTTISH VIEWPOINT
The party supports the development of rural general hospitals and plans to train more generalist doctors to staff such hospitals. Incentives would be offered to doctors to train in rural medicine and work in rural areas. The party also wants to see rural medicine developed as a distinct specialty by establishing a faculty of rural medicine at one of Scotland's medical schools.
Local accountability for running health services would be strengthened through direct elections to NHS boards. Elected members would be given half the places on these management boards, with managers, clinicians, staff, and local authority representatives making up the remaining places.
Staff shortages in the NHS would be tackled by training an extra 100 doctors a year, through increasing the number of undergraduate medical school places. A recruitment campaign would also be developed to attract qualified nurses who do not work in the NHS back into the service.
An action plan would be put into place to create fit healthy young Scots. Every school pupil would receive an annual fitness test to identify any problems at an early stage. There would be a minimum of two hours of physical education in schools a week. The party is also committed to providing free nutritious school meals for all pupils, although this will be piloted in the first two years of primary school. Free fruit through a supermarket voucher scheme is also planned for pregnant women and for preschool children.
Other proposals include the scrapping of the controversial use of public-private partnerships to fund new hospitals and their replacement with not for profit trusts. Waiting times will be reduced through the establishment of a network of fast track diagnostic and treatment centres run by the NHS, not the private sector. Prescription charges would be abolished immediately for patients with chronic conditions and phased out for the rest of the population.
The party's leader, Alex Salmond, said that improving the Scottish NHS will be a top priority for the party: "Scotland's health service has been let down by the Labour Party. They have failed hard working staff and long waiting patients. The SNP will focus on treating people faster and closer to home. We will sort out Labour's health failures."(Bryan Christie)
Annual health checks for all school pupils, free fruit for pregnant women, and the development of rural hospitals are promised in the Scottish National Party's election manifesto to help make Scotland a healthier country. The party's health proposals are based around giving greater priority to the prevention of ill health while reshaping the NHS to improve local access and accountability.
Providing services over large and sparsely populated geographical areas has always been a challenge in Scotland. At the moment there are proposals to centralise many services, such as emergency departments and maternity care, by removing these from smaller hospitals. The Scottish National Party (SNP) says that it would reverse this trend by maintaining such core services at a local level.
Alex Salmond: "The SNP will focus on treating people... closer to home"
Credit: SCOTTISH VIEWPOINT
The party supports the development of rural general hospitals and plans to train more generalist doctors to staff such hospitals. Incentives would be offered to doctors to train in rural medicine and work in rural areas. The party also wants to see rural medicine developed as a distinct specialty by establishing a faculty of rural medicine at one of Scotland's medical schools.
Local accountability for running health services would be strengthened through direct elections to NHS boards. Elected members would be given half the places on these management boards, with managers, clinicians, staff, and local authority representatives making up the remaining places.
Staff shortages in the NHS would be tackled by training an extra 100 doctors a year, through increasing the number of undergraduate medical school places. A recruitment campaign would also be developed to attract qualified nurses who do not work in the NHS back into the service.
An action plan would be put into place to create fit healthy young Scots. Every school pupil would receive an annual fitness test to identify any problems at an early stage. There would be a minimum of two hours of physical education in schools a week. The party is also committed to providing free nutritious school meals for all pupils, although this will be piloted in the first two years of primary school. Free fruit through a supermarket voucher scheme is also planned for pregnant women and for preschool children.
Other proposals include the scrapping of the controversial use of public-private partnerships to fund new hospitals and their replacement with not for profit trusts. Waiting times will be reduced through the establishment of a network of fast track diagnostic and treatment centres run by the NHS, not the private sector. Prescription charges would be abolished immediately for patients with chronic conditions and phased out for the rest of the population.
The party's leader, Alex Salmond, said that improving the Scottish NHS will be a top priority for the party: "Scotland's health service has been let down by the Labour Party. They have failed hard working staff and long waiting patients. The SNP will focus on treating people faster and closer to home. We will sort out Labour's health failures."(Bryan Christie)