NHS board election trial outlined

The pilot elections will be rated independently

Direct elections to health boards in Scotland are being trialled in Fife and Dumfries and Galloway next year.

Members of the public can stand in the contest, which will see councillors and elected members form a majority on health boards for the first time.

Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon said the move was vital to improving public accountability.

Direct elections - opposed by several NHS boards - could be rolled out, depending on the pilot's success.

The trial elections, using an all-postal vote ballot, will be held in spring 2010 and run for at least two years before being independently evaluated.

This is designed to ensure that the views of local people about the NHS services they pay for can no longer be ignored Nicola Sturgeon Scottish health secretary

Teenagers aged 16 and 17 will also be able to vote in the elections.

Scottish Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon said: "With the selection of Fife and Dumfries and Galloway as pilot boards, we have taken a further step towards the first ever direct elections to Scottish health boards.

"This is designed to ensure that the views of local people about the NHS services they pay for can no longer be ignored."

Direct health board elections have been opposed by five of Scotland's 14 NHS authorities and doctors' group the BMA, over concerns of the "politicisation" of health boards.

As well as the main pilot scheme, NHS Lothian and NHS Grampian will run non-statutory pilots, to test ways in which public engagement with the current system can be improved.

One of the earliest acts of the SNP in government was to reverse decisions by the previous administration to close accident and emergency units at Ayr hospital and Monklands in Lanarkshire, which had caused a local outcry.