§ Mr. Home RobertsonTo ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will publish a table showing expenditure on hospital and community health services and its comparison with hospital and community health service inflation for each health board in Scotland since 1977 on the same basis as table F in paragraph 214 of the Scottish Health Service Planning Council's SHARPEN report.
§ Mr. Michael ForsythParagraph 214 of the working document on Scottish health authorities' review of priorities for the 1980s and 1990s, which is at present under consideration by the Scottish Health Service Planning Council, explains that the index of pay and prices used in table F is one which is compiled by DHSS for the hospital and community health services in England, and that it can serve to give some broad indication of the effect of pay and price changes in the equivalent services in Scotland. However, since the mix of staff and other inputs purchased by individual Scottish health boards varies, it would not be meaningful to apply the DHSS index to individual boards' recurrent expenditure.