Angus healthcare group step closer to taking over Brechin Infirmary site.

HUB: Group looks to create centre for wellbeing to benefit wider community

Brechin Healthcare Group (BHG) has now received an “agreement in principle” to take over the massive Brechin Infirmary site.

The community asset transfer request to NHS Tayside for the site has been validated, subject to being able to put forward a “feasible and sustainable” business plan.

The aim is to develop a health and wellbeing hub for the community of Brechin, Edzell and the Glens, with “social prescribing” at its heart.

The infirmary was deemed surplus to requirements in February 2018.

BHG chairman Grahame Lockhart said: “The Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 offers us an exciting opportunity to take responsibility for our future health and wellbeing at a time of reduction in services.

“The health and wellbeing hub on the former Brechin Infirmary site will not only benefit our community but can

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The health and wellbeing hub will not only benefit our community but can be a template... throughout Scotland and beyond. GRAHAME LOCKHART

be a template for other communities throughout Scotland and beyond.”

BHG now has six months in which to demonstrate their business plan for the health and wellbeing hub at the infirmary site is feasible and sustainable.

During the six-month period BHG will be working closely with NHS Tayside’s property department “to satisfy the requirements necessary before ownership of the infirmary site can be transferred to the group”.

Mr Lockhart said BHG will be engaging with the people in the community, groups, care providers, the schools and other agencies to highlight the benefits the hub will bring.

He said those benefits will include care and support for those with longterm conditions and those seeking volunteer and apprenticeship training.

The former nursing home at St Drostan’s, which is also part of the group of buildings on the site, has also just gone on the market.

Offers have been invited after the building was put up for sale by Angus Council.

It is described as being “suitable for alternative commercial use”.

Brechin Infirmary opened as a general voluntary hospital in 1869 before it was enlarged in the 1920s on the lines recommended by Florence Nightingale.

Picture: Kim Cessford. Brechin Healthcare Group members, from left, Nilima Puthu, Moira Robertson, Irene Gillies, Dick Robertson, Grahame Lockhart, John Mckenna, Gary Robertson and Frances Keats in front of the old infirmary building.