Emergency Budget Review reprioritising £65m from primary care spending: FOI release

Information requested

In the Emergency Budget Review, the Scottish Government states it is reprioritising £65m from primary care spending, specifically: This has been achieved by a reduction in the planned growth rate for the Primary Care Improvement Fund, including a one-off utilisation of reserve funding held by integration authorities. In addition, it includes re-phasing of some elements of the planned enhancements to community optometry and audiology services.

1. How much money, broken down by integration authority, has been utilised from the reserve funding described?
2. What elements of the planned enhancements to community optometry and audiology services have been rephased, and exactly how much has been saved through this rephasing, broken down by each element.
3. How much has been reduced in the planned growth rate of the Primary Care Improvement Fund, and how much has been saved by doing so?

Response

Reserves held by Integration Authorities, comprising Primary Care Improvement Fund (PCIF) funding from previous years, have been utilised in funding this year's PCIF allocation, resulting in a one-off benefit. The distribution of these reserves is set out below:

NHS Board Name	IA Name	In-year reserve adjustment £’000
Ayrshire & Arran	East Ayrshire	573
	North Ayrshire	554
	South Ayrshire	573
Borders	Scottish Borders	1,444
Dumfries & Galloway	Dumfries and Galloway	1,227
Fife	Fife	1,382
Forth Valley	Clackmannanshire and Stirling	22
	Falkirk	954
Grampian	Aberdeen City	26
	Aberdeenshire	1,037
	Moray	0
Greater Glasgow & Clyde	East Dunbartonshire	213
	East Renfrewshire	666
	Glasgow City	0
	Inverclyde	0
	Renfrewshire	0
	West Dunbartonshire	529
Highland	Argyll and Bute	277
	Highland	0
Lanarkshire	Lanarkshire combined	4,005
Lothian	East Lothian	278
	Edinburgh	1,203
	Midlothian	402
	West Lothian	638
Orkney	Orkney Islands	0
Shetland	Shetland Islands	230
Tayside	Angus	0
	undee City	274
	Perth and Kinross	0
Western Isles	Western Isles	157
Total		17,364

In response to your question 1b), the table below sets out how savings have been applied to the community optometry and audiology budgets in 2022-23.

Programme Budget	2022-23 Published Budget £m	Applied Saving £m	2022-23 Revised Budget £m
Community Eyecare – Reform and Delivery	7.5	4.9	2.6
Audiology Service	2.2	1.9	0.3
Total	9.7	6.8	2.9

Both programmes of work are new for this financial year, having been announced in the 2021 Programme for Government, however the in-year revised budgets allow for legal and contractual commitments associated with these new programmes to continue.

• For optometry, delivery schedules for the community low-vision service and expanding General Ophthalmic Services to enhance support for Independent Prescriber optometrists managing anterior eye conditions have been rephased and extended, with the focus instead on preparatory work with NES and NSS business partners. However, work to establish a community glaucoma service is well under way, with initial roll-out planned in some areas of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde in 2022-23, moving to national roll-out in future years.
• For audiology, residual 2022-23 investment is being used to fund preparatory work associated with new models of delivery.

In response to your question 1c), based on revised outturn estimates for Primary Care Improvement Fund 2021-22, the planned growth has decreased by £20m, resulting in an expected £20m saving from the Primary Care Improvement Fund in 2022-23.

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