The report found a decline in service delivery

Andy Kerr was responding to a critical report from MSPs which looked at value for money in the NHS.

MSPs said they were "very concerned" that some services were costing more and delivering less.

Tory MSP Brian Monteith said: "The NHS is not performing as well as it should. In fact productivity has fallen back in some areas."

The health department has now accepted this criticism.

Mr Kerr said change was happening and that processes were being put in place to assess how the health service was performing.

He told BBC Radio's Good Morning Scotland programme: "The statistics are focussed almost singularly on hospital activity and we're doing much more.

Service 'changing'

"In the community we're using nurse consultants and GP specialists to do many different services now that weren't available before and simply the statistics are not recording it."

Mr Kerr added: "We're doing very well in many areas but quite rightly we need to do better in others and I'm happy to take that challenge on, but I think we should respect the work of the health service and recognise some of the good stuff that is going on."

The Scottish Parliament's audit committee's report was published earlier this year.

'Record numbers'

It found that an apparent decline in NHS activity was "particularly concerning given the high levels of investment in recent years and the record numbers of staff in the system".

The executive response stated: "The department shares the committee's concern about the apparent decline in activity set against the high levels of investment, and increased staff resources, while pointing out that recorded activity may lag behind actual activity."

BBC Scotland political correspondent Glenn Campbell said this was a major contrast from what the minister said when the committee initially put out its report.

He said: "It could actually be something of a watershed in terms of how the NHS is run in Scotland, but that very much depends what, if any, policy response now follows."