§ Mr. Donald Stewartasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will state the funding per capita in each of the Scottish health board areas at the latest available date.
§ Mr. RifkindThe figures for 1984–85 are as follows:
Health Board £ 'per capita Argyll and Clyde 282.45 Ayrshire and Arran 255.77 Borders 264.85 Dumfries and Galloway 309.77 Fife 251.28 Forth Valley 293.92 Grampian 299.14 Greater Glasgow 436.01 Highland 322.72 Lanarkshire 258.98 Lothian 354.48 Orkney 266.23 Shetland 228.55 Tayside 389.69 Western Isles 284.49 Scotland 327.57 Notes:
1. The expenditure figures used are taken from the annual accounts submitted to the Department by the Health Board, and are net of charges retained by family practitioners.
2. The population figures used are mid-year estimates of resident population for 1984.
3. The figures do not include expenditure on support services provided by the Common Services Agency which was £11.75 per capita in Scotland as a whole, or expenditure on the main capital programme which was £12.85 per capita.
The distribution of funds to health boards in Scotland is determined by population weighted according to age, sex and local mortality rates, by the amount of health care provided for patients from neighbouring areas (cross-boundary flow), by teaching hospital costs, by a number of other commitments, and also by the extent to which individual boards benefit by the operation of the resources equalisation process. It is therefore not possible to draw reliable conclusions from comparisons of per capita expenditure by health boards based on resident population figures which make no allowance for these factors.