Health service chiefs and Labour ministers in Scotland have insisted for some time that their policies were not just "Alan Milburn in a kilt".
Indeed if you can put that unsavoury image out of your mind, the new proposals embodied in Scotland's new NHS plan - A Plan for Action, A Plan for Change - offer a welcome contrast to the half-baked and reactionary proposals south of the border.
The Scottish plan involves scrapping NHS Trusts, and taking bold steps to eradicate the Tory internal market system. Gone, at a stroke, is the baffling proliferation of Primary Care Groups, Primary Care Trusts, NHS Trusts and health authorities set up by Milburn since 1997 in England. Gone with them are at least 100 pointless "nonexecutive" quango members. Instead Scotland will see the reintegration of the planning and provision of care under the control of 15 Health Boards, in a step hailed by UNIIMAVE YOU GOT ANTHING FOR SOCIALIST FRINCIPIES DOCTOR? SON as the "renationalisation of the NHS". NHS Trusts, pushed out of the loop of decision making by Alan Milburn, and sidelined in tavour or extra powers for unaccountable GPs, will have seats on the new health boards, along with local authorities. inere are omer gains compared with Milburn's feeble and ineffective structure: while Labour plans to axe the "patients' watchdog" bodies in England, the Community Health Councils, the Scottish plan would retain and even strengthen the equivalent local health councils.
There will be a special expert working group on improving care for the elderly in Scotland. A vital first step towards this will be funding free home care for older people discharged from hospital, and Scotland's First Minister Henry McLeish has even floated the idea of implementing the full proposals of Labour's Royal Commission on Care of the Elderly, and scrapping meanstestea charges Tor continuing care.
Already questions are being asked as to whether Gordon Brown will allow his Scottish colleagues to spend the extra £110m a year required to implement this policy, which the Treasury has effectively blocked in England.
Of course Scotland's NHS has for many years been better funded than health care south of the border, and waiting lists and maximum waiting times - currently 12 months - are significantly shorter than England (18 months). The new plan would reduce Scotland's maximum wait to just 9 months by 2004.
Of course the plan has its flaws: it could still be much more democratic, and otter a better deal to nealtn workers and patients.
But the Scottish NHS plan is living proof that even a reformist New Labour government could have come up with something better than the abortive health reforms in England, and - along with student fees -it is a good reason to consider emigrating to the north. cottages: they just want a wage big enough to live on!
PFI schemes should scrapped at once, and some of Gordon Brown's unspent surplus should available as a new NHS capital for a redevelopment of hosnitals. health and community serVices.
Existing PFI must be nationalised reintegrated with the NHS, along with all of the privatised domestic, catering and other services, which have been over to contractors.
Means-testing for care of the elderly should also be scrapped., and private nurshome chains run major corporations should be nationalised. Large local nursing homes should also be taken over by the NHS, which, working with local councils - should take back the responsibility financing and provision of long-term care for the frail elderly - free at point of use and funded from taxation.
Where necessary the NHS should build or remodel existing buildings to create additional accommodation.