Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon has been urged to “urgently” change her stance on the Kinloch Rannoch area’s out-of-hours medical provision.
Rannoch and Tummel Community Council has reacted to an apparent admission by finance secretary John Swinney that he has “never had confidence” in the figure placed on 24-hour GP cover.
Campaigners have mounted a legal challenge for round-the-clock cover and hope Ms Sturgeon will now order an NHS Tayside U-turn on the issue.
The health authority claims it will cost over £500,000 to resume 24-hour GP cover and maintains the current first responder scheme is adequate.
Mr Swinney’s comments came in a letter, written as MSP for North Tayside rather than in his ministerial capacity, to constituent and vociferous critic of the set-up Dick Barbor-Might.
He wrote, “I have never had confidence in the figures quoted by NHS Tayside.
“We can all put together financial assumptions and if we put them together in a fashion that is designed to create a bad impression, which I think the half a million figure does, then I don’t think it can help the quality of our debate.”
The community council has seized on this as a split in the government and has urged Ms Sturgeon to reconsider her stance before parliament dissolves ahead of the May elections.
The letter from community council chairman Alex Grosset states, “Mr Swinney is not only one of your ministerial colleagues in the Scottish Government but is the finance secretary.
“Within the government he thus has prime responsibility for the public finances.
“His view about the costing and the distorting effect that it had on the decision process at NHS Tayside should carry great weight with you and with other members of the Scottish Government.
“This is especially so since Mr Swinney has made his position known to this community council, which represents a number of his constituents.
“Whatever may have been your view in October 2009, I suggest to you that the position that you then adopted is not sustainable, given that you are the minister with prime responsibility in the Scottish Government with oversight over health boards…
“The £556,876 costing has been discredited and yet it was provided to Tayside Health Board members for their November 13, 2008, meeting as a basis for making their decisions between different options ‘for enhancing emergency response’ and the board members were told that they must take affordability into account.
“I therefore ask you to reconsider your position and to respond positively to the request that we have made to you on a number of occasions, namely that you assume responsibility and set aside the decision by the Tayside Health Board that, apart from other irregularities, was based upon an unreliable and now discredited costing.”
Ms Sturgeon has steadfastly maintained it is for individual health boards to carry out such costings and she will only intervene if the result shows a fall in health-care standards.
A spokesman for NHS Tayside said the figure came from a cost analysis of 24-hour, year-round medical cover based on NHS terms and conditions.
A spokesman for Mr Swinney said yesterday, “Mr Swinney has properly expressed his view as the constituency MSP for North Tayside.
“It would be inappropriate to comment on live… proceedings.”