Costs

Statistical Publication Notice

27 November 2007

Scottish Health Service Costs, year ended 31st March 2007

INTRODUCTION

Scottish Health Service Costs publication (the Costs Book) provides a detailed analysis of where resources are spent in the NHSS.

The NHSS is primarily organised into 14 health boards and 8 special health boards, along with the Mental Welfare Commission and the Mental Health Tribunal. The net operating cost of these bodies recorded in their annual accounts for 2006/07 amounted to £8.9 billion.

The Costs Book detailed reports are structured to analyse around 90% of this total, presenting information on the boards that provide hospital and community care directly to patients. This reflects health care expenditure within the 14 health board areas and at two of the special boards, namely the State Hospital and Golden Jubilee National Hospital - amounting to £7.8 billion.

KEY POINTS

Operating costs of the 16 NHS Boards analysed in the Costs Book have risen by 4.5%.
NHSS employs more than 110,000 staff working in the hospital and community sectors. The pay bill for these sectors in 2006/07 was over £3.8 billion, an increase of 4.6% from the previous year, and accounting for 67% of the running costs of these services.
Almost £1.2 billion was spent on prescription drugs - which amounts to 15.1% of the total spend on the three sectors - and is the equivalent of over £230 for every person in Scotland.

DETAILED FINDINGS

Hospital expenditures
- £93 million on cleaning, an increase of over £8 million from 2006
- £64.2 million on heat and light, an increase of 1%
- £1.2 million a year to run an operating theatre for 25 hours per week
- £179 million on 2.9 million attendances for x-rays and scans
Hospital costs (average per patient) 2007 2006
- Attendance at A&E department £82 £86
- Attendance at an outpatient clinic £105 £105
- Attendance for MRI scan £188 £150
- Attendance for day surgery £648 £583
- Admission as a surgical inpatient £2,684 £2,560
- Admission to intensive care £8,599 £7,968
Community services
- £988 million spent on community care, up £29 million from last year
- Including £63.8 million on child health and £7.5 million on home dialysis
- Over 20,000 staff (wtes) working in the service
- Over 4.4 million visits by district nurses and community midwives
Family health services
- £700 million on primary medical services, provided at more than 1,000 GP practices
- £275 million on NHS dental care provided by over 2000 general dental practitioners
- £67 million on High street Ophthalmic services
- £1.1 billion on pharmaceutical services provided at 1,175 pharmacies supplying £892 million worth of prescription drugs