Scotland has different health needs and NHS structures from the rest of the UK. This is why doctors, nurses and managers say Scotland deserves its own NHS plan.
There is a strong consensus north of the border that historical, cultural and epidemiological circumstance means that there should be a specifically Scottish solution to Scottish health needs and problems.
"Scotland's health services had a different structure long before devolution," says Dr Lindsay Burley, chief executive with Borders health board.
"There is also quite a significant cultural difference north of the border. For example, we have traditionally been better at recruiting staff, especially doctors, and there isn't nearly so much private practice here."
Dr Charles Swainson, medical director at the Lothian acute trust, says: "Our priorities may be different and we may decide to target our resources in a different way. "The Scottish health plan is about recognising the diversity in the UK. The whole point of devolution was to give more local control over how the resources agreed should be spent.
"We might think it a better long-term health gain to spend money on improving the housing stock than on asthma, or to spend money on improving children's diets or the sexual health of young people rather than on Relenza."
According to Dr Jim Rodger, chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners' Scottish council, Scotland needs its own health plan because the population has traditionally been poorer than England's, leading to a greater reliance on the NHS.
"I believe there is also a stronger feeling for the NHS in Scotland, both by the general public and by health professionals. They are totally committed to the NHS and its principles," he says.
The plan is likely to reflect specific Scottish health needs including high rates of coronary heart disease and lung cancer, as well as issues such as remoteness - Shetland, for instance, is more than 200 miles from the mainland.
Jeremy Taylor, chief executive of Grampian primary care trust, says: "There are much higher levels of morbidity and deprivation in many of these areas. That isn't to say that England doesn't have dreadful problems too. But on a national scale, Scotland can be regarded as having a relatively unhealthy population, compared with the rest of the UK and Europe."
Eight of the 10 most deprived political constituencies in the UK are within Scotland, says James Kennedy, board secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, Scotland. "Types of lifestyle here have to be addressed in the plan."
But while Scotland's NHS plan will be custom-made, few feel it will become radically different from its counterparts in England and Wales, and Northern Ireland.
"I don't think there will be marked differences," says Mr Taylor. "The fundamental principles of the NHS will remain, north and south of the border.
"It is a natural process in medicine, for example, to homogenise. This includes working to guidelines, standards and protocols that are developed nationally and internationally.
"Even if there are different parties in power in Scotland and England, I don't think we will see a radical departure from the basic principles that all political parties espouse."
Dr Swainson adds: "I am keen that we continue to learn from each other as well as celebrate our diversity, although if there are governments of different persuasion we will certainly have to watch things carefully."
Some patients in the border areas use health services in England and vice-versa, says Dr Burley. "If health services were very different this could compromise universality of access and the health areas which sit on the borders would have to face the problems of what to do if there were different sets of rules."
Dr Rodger is not optimistic that there will be much difference at all between the English plan and the Scottish plan, when it is unveiled.
"We had expected that we were going to go our own way in developing health care," he says. "But now we believe we will be dragged back into a UK-wide version."
