Multi-Million Pound Boost to NHS Tayside

SNP Budget Delivers for Health Service

SNP candidate for the Angus South constituency, Lloyd Melville, has said that the SNP’s relentless focus on Scotland’s NHS is delivering results for people here in Angus.

It comes after the SNP Government’s budget for 2026/27 was passed by MSPs last week – delivering record funding of £22.5 billion for the NHS and social care, including almost £1.2 billion for NHS Tayside.  This represents an increase of 8.6%, or £94.2 million, on the previous year.

The new NHS budget also contains £2.4 billion for primary care including £36 million for new walk-in GP services – with the first launched in Edinburgh last month and a further 15 to follow this year across the country, including one in the Tayside health board area. A walk-in service in Lochee in Dundee will open this month – available seven days a week from 12pm-8pm, with no appointment necessary.

Funding will also help enable the expansion of the number of Hospital at Home beds to at least 2,000 across Scotland by the end of 2026. 

The latest nationwide statistics confirm that long waiting times have now fallen for eight months in a row, with GP numbers going up. New outpatient waits of more than 52 weeks have more than halved since July 2025, and waits of over a year have reduced by almost 30% for inpatient/day-case procedures in the same period.

Figures out today further reveal an increase in the number of NHS operations performed, and sustained improvements in mental health care for children and young people.

New figures show the number of operations carried out in the 12 months to January 2026 increased by 6.1% compared to the same period the year before, while Scotland has met its Programme for Government commitment on specialist children's mental health waiting times consistently for over a year. 90% of children and young people referred to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) started treatment within 18 weeks of referral by the December 2025 target date – with waiting times of over 18 weeks are now at their lowest level since June 2013.

The Scottish Government has invested significantly in CAMHS over the past decade, with staffing increasing by 53%. The commitment to fund 320 additional CAMHS posts by 2026 has been exceeded, increasing capacity for cases by over 10,000.

To provide alternatives to this specialist service, over £80 million has also been invested in community mental health services – plus £16 million a year for school counselling. From this year, £15 million annually will go to local authorities to maintain community-based support for children and young people who need it.

“We all know and have felt how our NHS has been pushed to its limit in recent years.

“But the laser focus of this SNP Scottish Government on the recovery of the health service has seen sustained improvement in performance over many months now – with waiting times falling, operation numbers up, and GP numbers far higher than south of the border.

“In the face of Westminster chaos the SNP Government is staying the course, and this record funding settlement for NHS Tayside will support the continuation of the trajectory we are on – ensuring patients in Angus can get the medical treatment they need.

“While this Scottish Government is not complacent and knows much work is still to be done, under the leadership of John Swinney the SNP is clearly focussed on delivering on the priorities of people here in Angus and across Scotland.”

- SNP candidate for Angus South, Lloyd Melville