THE number of patients being sent from Scotland to other parts of the UK for treatment has risen by almost 200 in four years, new figures have revealed.
At the same time, the cost of the spiralling number of referrals outside Scotland has risen by £40 million as health boards pay to have patients treated elsewhere.
Now opposition MSPs have called on the Scottish Government to explain why the figures are on the rise and provide assurances mismanagement of vital resources is not to blame.
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Concerns have been raised that sick and injured patients are being forced to undergo unnecessary journeys to be treated away from home, potentially damaging their health and forcing relatives to uproot their lives to stay in touch.
Records show that the number of referrals outside Scotland that the NHS National Services Division has approved for national funding has increased from 427 in 2013/14 to 625 in 2016/17.
Over the past four years the total cost of these services has been £51.7 million, rising from £11.9m in 2013/14 to £15.2m in 2016/17, according to Figures obtained from health boards by the Scottish Liberal Democrats.
Scottish Liberal Democrat health spokesperson Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP said: “Those experiencing ill health, and particularly long-term complex illnesses, don’t want to be undertaking long journeys or spending more time than is necessary away from home, friends and family.
"That is why the news that there has been an almost 50 per cent rise in the number of patients being sent outside Scotland for treatment in the past four years warrants an explanation.
"It's important that patients in Scotland have access to the best possible care. If there is expertise elsewhere in the UK that they can benefit from then it is right that they can do so.
"However, we need to know whether the significant rise in patients being sent outside Scotland is a consequence of SNP ministers’ failures.
For example, the failure to plan the NHS workforce properly has led to huge numbers of long-term vacancies. More than 250 consultant posts have been empty for six months or more."
A Scottish Government spokesman defended its handling of the NHS, saying that it made sense for specialist care to be centralised to allow expertise to be concentrated in one area which can be accessed by the whole of the UK.
He said: “NHS funding has increased to a record high under this Government, as has staffing, which has increased by more than 12,400.
“Spending on this very specialist care represents just 0.1 per cent of the record £47.4 billion investment in the NHS over the last four years, and a tiny proportion of the total number of procedures carried out in the NHS, which reached a record one million inpatient procedures last year.
“As complexity of healthcare increases and costs rise it is right that very specialised care for procedures such as lung transplants, is occasionally provided at specialist centres outwith Scotland to allow expertise to be concentrated and patients and families to be treated in quality settings.”