Future of delayed NHS surgery centres is unclear

The future of five delayed NHS treatment centres to deal with a backlog of operations will not be known until December.

Plans to build national treatment centres (NTCs) in Livingston, Perth, Aberdeen, Ayr and Cumbernauld were put on hold in February last year due to funding problems.

The Scottish government previously said it would set out its plans after the UK government's spending review, which took place earlier this month.

Now a further review of which NHS building projects to prioritise has been ordered by Scottish ministers, with an update on the surgery centres expected in December.

Latest figures show there are 559,742 ongoing waits for new outpatient appointment in Scotland's health service, with waits of more than two years at the highest ever level.

First Minister John Swinney has pledged to bring down waiting lists and carry out an extra 150,000 appointments and procedures in the coming year.

The Scottish government's original plan for dealing with a backlog of operations was a network of treatment centres intended to deliver at least 40,000 additional elective surgeries, diagnostics and other procedures per year by 2026.

Four of these centres are up and running, one has been further committed to by Scottish ministers but the remaining five remain unbuilt and have racked up £34m in costs so far.

The Scottish government said it was spending more than £1bn on NHS capital investment this year and has committed to progressing work on one of the unbuilt NTCS, a replacement for the Princess Alexandra Eye Pavilion in Edinburgh.

A spokesperson added: "As part of our own Scottish Spending Review, we are undertaking a full review of our capital spending to prioritise the available funding towards projects that drive progress against our priorities.

"We will provide clarity over which projects and programmes will receive funding in the medium term when we publish our new infrastructure pipeline, alongside the 2026-27 Budget and Scottish Spending Review.

"The publication of the new pipeline will put our capital budget back on a sustainable trajectory."

Tess White, the Conservative North East MSP, said ministers "urgently need to be upfront" about their plan for the Aberdeen treatment centre.

She said: "It's a disgrace that the future of all five delayed NHS treatment centres will not be known until December.

"We have repeatedly warned that the SNP's flimsy recovery plan wouldn't work and now we are seeing this in practice as NHS Grampian struggles to reduce some of the longest waiting time backlogs in the country."

The four NTCs up and running are in Clydebank, Kirkcaldy, Inverness and Larbert.

They are used by all of Scotland's health boards and have been regarded as a successful addition to the NHS's capacity to deal with growing demand and backlogs.

However, the NTC at Forth Valley Royal Hospital in Larbert is only partially open.

The facility's operating theatres and MRI scanner are in use but its 30-bed ward has faced a series of delays.

Originally due to open in 2022, the inpatient ward was largely finished by 2023 but then a safety review found ventilation and fire safety issues.

A technical solution to these issues has still to be approved by local authority planners and NHS Forth Valley said it can't say when the ward will open until this happens.