THE Scottish Health Secretary said the announcement of £2 billion for the NHS in Scotland from an overall £20 billion investment in the health service in England has "not stood up well to scrutiny".

Prime Minister Theresa May announced the additional £20 billion in NHS funding and said it would be paid for by money no longer going to EU following Brexit.

Speaking on the BBC's Good Morning Scotland radio programme, Shona Robison said: "I welcome any money for the NHS but it has to be real money and this announcement really hasn't stood up well to the slightest scrutiny.

"The Tory claim that the NHS can be funded by a Brexit dividend is simply not credible as the UK will be paying £40 billion to leave the EU.

"That's not just me that's saying that but we've had the health committee chair Dr Sarah Wollaston calling it tosh and criticising the UK Government for treating the public like fools and of course we've had the Institute for Fiscal Studies saying there's no Brexit dividend.

"So we have to see the detail and see where this money is going to come from we have to see that it is going to be real money."

Any increase in funding for the health service in England is reflected in the Barnett formula, used to distribute Treasury funds across the devolved nations and Ms Robison said the Scottish Government has a "track record of always passing on the health consequentials to the NHS".

"The devil is in the detail and the Tories have form of cutting other budgets when they are passing on consequentials which leaves the Scottish Government less than the health consequentials from the UK Government," she said.

"We've increased the health budget by 9.6% in real terms between 2011 and 2018/19... We still fund far more per head of population in Scotland than south of the border."

Scottish Conservative health spokesman Miles Briggs told the same programme: "In terms of health spending in England it has grown about 10% and in Scotland it has only grown at 5%.

"I want to make sure that as see as we see this £2 billion in additional money coming to Scotland that those who work in our health service, who have been telling us that they need this key investment, will see this money coming through.

"I'll be making sure we keep the pressure on the SNP to deliver for Scotland and deliver for our NHS."