Community health and social care services will need continuing financial support from the Scottish government to deal with the fallout from covid-19, MSPs have been told.

Holyrood’s Health and Sport Committee heard today that the coronavirus pandemic had exacerbated pre-existing funding challenges facing health and social care partnerships (HSCPs) across the country.

Speaking about the pandemic response, Dundee Chief Officer Vicky Irons said “we still don’t have the end in sight”, adding that HSCPs were dependent on extra Scottish government funding “to get us through to this point”.

Before covid nearly two-thirds of Scotland’s 30 health and care partnerships were struggling to balance the books.

Now the pandemic is heaping further pressure on services, with additional costs because of the pandemic revealed at today’s committee meeting ranging from £6m for East Ayrshire to £32m for Edinburgh.

As well as sustainability payments to stop social care providers going under, HSCPs will also have to contend with an expanded winter flu jab and a hoped-for mass covid-19 vaccine programme.

Speaking to MSPs today, Edinburgh’s HSCP head Judith Proctor confirmed the partnership is now in a position to give contracted care workers a pay rise promised in April, following a dispute over Scottish government funding.

The Dundee partnership’s head Vicky Irons explained that extra funding had been vital to meet the covid-19 bill, mainly because of extra payments in social care.

“We are certainly making progress in terms of our financial position and working with evidence from lots of other areas about which aspects of service need to go through a level of reform to get us into a more sustainable position,” she added.

East Ayrshire HSCP lead Eddie Fraser said that costs were likely to be higher for some time, because routine home care and nursing visits were taking longer due to strict infection control measures and PPE.

Edinburgh’s Judith Proctor said the board was working towards “true financial stability” and a “right size organisation that delivers services in a sustainable way”.

MSPs were told that the pandemic had led to traditional barriers between different services being broken down.

Mr Fraser outlined steps to redesign urgent care across Ayrshire and Arran by triaging patients before they arrived at A&E.

He said the goal was to save “people going and waiting for four hours in an emergency department, to get seen by someone for ten minutes.”

“This is not for me about protecting the emergency department, this is for me about making sure people get the right care in the right place,” he said.

Ms Irons added: “I was personally quite taken aback at just how quick new arrangements fell into place, just how quickly all of the barriers we had seen before were no longer barriers.”

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