Scotland's National Care Service delayed by three years

Scotland's health secretary has confirmed the government has delayed its flagship plan to set up a National Care Service by three years.

Michael Matheson told BBC Scotland News that the Scottish government needed "more time" to work with councils.

In a bid to avoid costs rising to an estimated £2.2bn, ministers have proposed scaling back the scheme.

The Scottish government had described it as the "biggest public service reform in Scotland since devolution".

Its aim was to simplify community health and social care across the nation.

For example older people or those with disabilities needing to access services would fill in fewer forms; the same streamlined approach would apply in all of Scotland's 32 council areas and care services would be provided earlier, not at crisis point.

It also promised to establish a system whereby people could move between different types of care as their needs changed.

The ambitious plan, external was to help not only the old and disabled but the homeless, addicts, families and unpaid carers.

The original proposal, initially estimated to cost between £644m and £1.26bn over five years, was to introduce the National Care Service by the end of the 2026 parliamentary term.

But in a letter to the finance committee, external sent on Monday, Social Care Minister Maree Todd said it would be pushed back to 2028-29.

She warned the total cost of the original proposals could rise to between £900m and £2.2bn over 10 years.

The scheme would have transferred social care responsibility from councils to a new national service.

But Ms Todd proposed scrapping that transfer and abandoning plans for regional care boards, as well as creating a national board to manage the shared accountability process.

She said if MSPs agree to the "significant" changes then costs could drop to between £631m and £916m.

Mr Matheson told BBC Scotland News: "We want to make sure we take forward the creation of a national care service in what I would like to see as a collaborative fashion.

"We've made it very clear that in order to do that we need more time to get those arrangements in place, and as my colleague has set out today to parliament, we want to take more time to look at how we take that forward."

The cost of the original plan to transfer 75,000 social care staff to central government was estimated to cost between £96m and £270m.

The changes follow criticism from trade unions and local government umbrella body Cosla, with ministers delaying a stage one vote earlier this year to allow for "compromise".

The finance committee also raised concerns in April due to a "lack of information" on the financial implications of the bill.