New NHS boards are to be created

It will see Scotland's 28 health trusts losing their power to make strategic decisions.

That responsibility will be taken over by new NHS boards, which will replace health boards.

It is expected that the 15 boards will be told they have to improve the quality of care and the health of the population.

Ms Deacon is understood to want to see the NHS become focused on the outcome of patient care, not financial targets

The moves are also seen as a key step towards ending the problem of postcode prescribing.

Improving the NHS

Ministers say the care received by people across Scotland can vary depending on where they live, despite the end of the internal market system.

The health plan is expected to cut the number of non-executive directors on NHS trusts and health boards to the bare minimum.

Insiders have predicted that this would mean up to 100 quango appointees facing the axe from January onwards.

The new boards would direct the strategy for healthcare within their areas, co-ordinating the work of acute trusts - which manage hospitals - and primary care trusts, which manage GP and community services.

The plan is geared towards action and it is geared towards change

Scottish Executive source

New health improvement bodies will also be set up in each area.

"We want to make sure that we improve health in Scotland and we want to improve the way the NHS runs in Scotland," said an executive source.

"The plan is geared towards action and it is geared towards change."

Ministers want clinical workers to be represented on the new NHS boards as well as managers, with the chief executive of each trust in each area having a seat on the board.

Boards will also be encouraged to end duplication of functions.

The executive has conducted a massive consultation exercise on the future of the health service, including an opinion poll which asked 3,000 people for their views.

Healthcare 'getting worse'

The MORI opinion suggested that at least 80% of people using the NHS in Scotland were happy with the service, with 44% expecting improvements in the future.

But 48% felt the last two years had seen no change in the NHS's performance, and 32% actually thought the NHS had got worse in recent years.

The plan will also outline a series of measures aimed at improving the quality of healthcare and Scotland's dire health record, with a new duty on the NHS boards to improve public health.

Ms Deacon announced last month that there would be major changes to the way decisions are made in the NHS.

It is absurd that health trusts will not be removed

Nicola Sturgeon, SNP health spokeswoman

The plan, which will end the legacy of the internal market introduced by the Conservative government in the late 1980s, follows a year of working on modernising the NHS.

However, Scottish National Party health spokeswoman Nicola Sturgeon accused Labour of being the cause of the real problems in the NHS.

She said soaring waiting lists and cuts in beds were at the heart of the problems.

"While I welcome proposals designed to remove layers of the unnecessary bureaucracy currently impairing the National Health Service in Scotland, it is absurd that health trusts will not be removed," she said.

"Structural change is badly needed to remove the legacy of the internal market, but by delaying these changes it is inevitable that the NHS will suffer a prolonged period of uncertainty and upheaval."