Board’s £1m healthcare reserve fund can’t pay to fix leaky surgery roof
A £1.4 million infrastructure reserve fund held by the board which oversees healthcare in West Lothian cannot be used to fix the leaking roof of East Calder medical centre, a meeting heard.
The cash can only be spent on projects which will guarantee delivery of budget savings to the board which needs to shave millions off its annual spending.
Plans to replace the decaying 1970s medical practice buildings in the rapidly expanding town have been on the drawing board for two decades. They were delayed for at least another two years when the Scottish Government put a ban on NHS capital spending in January.
The Integration Joint Board (IJB) heard that only regular maintenance work can be carried out by NHS Lothian, and East Calder languishes on a backlog list with hundreds of other NHS buildings needing work.
Members of the board were presented with a report on the reserve fund from chief financial officer, Hamish Hamilton.
Mr Hamilton told the board, which includes four West Lothian councillors: “The purpose of the fund is to support medium to large size projects but they must support the delivery of savings measures, so a leaking roof in a GP practice would fall under the existing NHS Lothian backlog maintenance arrangements.”
He added that the infrastructure fund could only identify refurbishment requirements “that can support the delivery of saving measures”.
Earlier this month voting members of the IJB backed proposals by Labour councillor Andrew McGuire that the board write to Scottish ministers to protest at the further delay to plans to replace the East Calder surgery.
Councillor McGuire told the last meeting of the IJB: “I think we would be doing the people of East Calder a disservice, and indeed other places which might soon need buildings, so I would propose IJB voting members all send a joint letter to the Scottish Government to communicate their concerns with the delays to this project.”
East Calder was built in the 1970s to support 5,000 patients. The current patient list is almost 15,000 and the forecast is for that to grow by a further 5,000 by 2028.