NHS Scotland, sometimes styled NHSScotland, is the publicly–funded healthcare system in Scotland and one of the four systems that make up the National Health Service in the United Kingdom. It operates 14 territorial NHS boards across Scotland, supported by seven special non-geographic health boards, and Public Health Scotland.

At the founding of the National Health Service in the United Kingdom, three separate institutions were created in Scotland, England and Wales and Northern Ireland. The NHS in Scotland was accountable to the Secretary of State for Scotland rather than the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care as in England and Wales. Prior to 1948, a publicly funded healthcare system, the Highlands and Islands Medical Service, had been established in Scotland in 1913.

Following Scottish devolution in 1999, health and social care policy and funding became devolved to the Scottish Parliament. It is currently administered through the Health and Social Care Directorates of the Scottish Government. The current Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care is Neil Gray, and the head of staff is the director-general health and social care and chief executive of NHS Scotland, Caroline Lamb.

Prior to the creation of NHS in Scotland in 1948, the state was involved with the provision of healthcare, though it was not universal. Half of Scotland's landmass was already covered by the Highlands and Islands Medical Service, a state-funded health system run directly from Edinburgh, which had been set up 35 years earlier to address a deficiency in the panel system, which required workers who earned less than £160 per year to pay 4d per week. Fourpence per week was beyond the means of most crofters at the time, who were subsistence farmers but often provided many troops for British armed forces. Average crofting families' income in some areas could be as low as £26 per annum (10/- or 120d per week) or even lower. The additional challenges of delivering medical care in the sparsely populated highlands and islands with poor infrastructure were also funded by the Highlands and Islands Medical Service.

During the Second World War, the Emergency Hospital Service (Scotland) built many hospitals intended to treat wartime casualties and injuries. These hospitals initially lay idle and so the Scottish Secretary at the time decided to use the hospital capacity to reduce long waiting lists for treatment.

Scotland also had its own distinctive medical tradition, centred on its medical schools rather than private practice, and a detailed plan for the future of health provision based on the Cathcart report.

Following the publication of the Beveridge Report in 1942, the UK Government responded with a white paper, A National Health Service (Cmd. 6502) in 1944 led by the Conservative MP and Minister for Health Henry Willink. In its introduction, the white paper laid out the Government's intention to have the new health service operate in Scotland--

The UK Parliament passed the National Health Service (Scotland) Act 1947, which came into effect on 5 July 1948. This foundational legislation has since been superseded.