Funding for NHS Grampian will be £7.7 million short of its official target in the forthcoming financial year, official figures have revealed.
Data provided for 2019/20 by the independent Scottish Parliament Information Centre (SPICe) suggests Scottish Government funding for the health board will come to £908.5 million, £7.7m short of its £916.2m target.
The figures were extracted by SPICe for Lib Dem North East MSP Mike Rumbles, who has used official figures to calculate that Grampian has already suffered from a £165.6m shortfall between £2009 and 2018.
In 2017/18 there was a £11.9m shortfall between cash allocated and the target.
The figures came from the NHSScotland Resource Allocation Committee (NRAC), which is responsible for around 70% of the total NHS budget between Scotland’s 14 health boards.
The formula makes adjustments for factors like the life circumstances and deprivation of local patients and the geographical challenges faced in each area.
Mr Rumbles said: “The Scottish Government has utterly failed to deliver proper healthcare in the north-east and that is not surprising because it has missed its own funding target for NHS Grampian every year since 2009.
“It will now take years to repair the damage and put NHS Grampian back on a level pegging with other health boards in Scotland.”
A NHS Grampian spokeswoman said: “We continue to work closely with the Scottish Government in securing funding in line with our NRAC target allocation. This position has consistently improved and we welcome the positive steps that have been taken. We anticipate that further progress towards our target allocation will continue.”
