Health spending
The Scottish health budget in 2001-02 will be £5.8 bn. Of this, the government has committed £15m to four initiatives called health demonstration projects with the aim of developing good practice in its priority areas - child/maternal health, sexual health, cancer and coronary heart disease. An additional £1m annually has been earmarked for the establishment of an Institute of Public Health for Scotland, based in Glasgow.
Comparative health spending
According to the Scottish Parliament's research service, spending per head on health in Scotland in 1999-2000 was about one-fifth more than the UK average. The figures show that, according to Westminster projections, the amount actually spent on health in Scotland will increase from £1,059 per head in 2000-01 to £1,150 in 2001-02.
Staff shortages
In common with the rest of the UK, Scotland suffers shortages of doctors. Scotland has been without an operational heart transplant unit since the departure of transplant surgeon Surendra Naik in May. NHS trust bosses are attempting to recruit two consultants with the aim of re-opening the unit at Glasgow Royal Infirmary in the spring of 2001. In April 1999 there were more than 1,200 full-time equivalent vacancies for nurses in the NHS in Scotland. Some 450 of these were unfilled for three months or more.
Heart disease, cancer and strokes
Heart disease is responsible for 40% of all deaths in Scotland. Despite a 50% drop in the death rate since 1980 (656 per 100,000 down to 332 per 100,000) Scotland remains top of international league tables for the "big three" killers: heart disease, cancer and strokes. Heart disease has now replaced cancer as the UK's biggest threat to women's health and here too the north/south differential remains. The premature death rate (before age 75) is 70% higher for women in Scotland than in East Anglia.
Drug use
The number of injecting drug users in Scotland has risen by 50% in the last six years to around 30,000. The knock-on impact on health services is considerable, with the number of new patients attending drug misuse services rising more than 300% from 2,980 in 1992-93 to 9,500 in 1998-99. A recent survey by greater Glasgow health board estimates that there are more than 15,000 drug addicts in the city - of whom 90% inject heroin. In the city centre alone, 43% of adults are believe to have some kind of drug problem.
Diet and nutrition
The legacy of the traditional Scots' fatty diet is revealed in latest statistics showing 75% of men and 62% of women over the age of 45 are overweight or obese. The Scottish health survey reveals that less than half of adult Scots eat cooked green vegetables five times a week.
Smoking
One-third of all adults in Scotland are regular cigarette smokers - more than in either England or Wales (33% in Scotland compared to 29% in Great Britain). Smoking rates among professional workers have halved over the past 20 years, but smoking is now concentrated among low-income groups. Roughly half of the men and women in the lowest income quarter in Scotland (49%) smoke, a figure which has hardly changed since the 1970s.
Teenage pregnancy
More than 9,000 teenagers become pregnant each year in Scotland and half of those pregnancies end in termination. The government's target is to reduce the pregnancy rate among 13-15 year olds by 20% by the year 2010. Teenage pregnancy rates in Scotland average 41 per 1,000 girls, while the average rate for teenage abortions was 34 for every 1,000 girls. Dundee tops Scotland's teenage conception rates with nearly 80 out of every 1,000 girls aged between 15 and 17. This is marginally less than the London borough of Southwark, which heads the statistical table for England and Wales with a pregnancy rate of 85 girls for every 1,000 - twice the national average.
