ONE of Scotland's largest health boards is planning legal action against the private firm that runs its flagship hospital after a patient in surgery had to be sewn up by torchlight.

NHS Lothian said it can no longer tolerate potentially deadly failures in the maintenance of Edinburgh Royal Infirmary after two operating theatres were plunged into darkness at the hospital.

Both theatres suffered a power cut when staff from private firm Consort, which runs the facility, started scheduled maintenance work too early and switched off the electricity supply.

Back-up systems were not available and theatre staff had to use torches to light one patient while a surgeon completed the operation. A second patient who was being prepared for surgery in another theatre had a procedure cancelled at the last minute.

It follows a similar incident in December when a father had to use the torch on his mobile phone to search for his newborn son in a birthing pool when the lights failed during the birth.

Alan Boyter, executive director at NHS Lothian, last night said the failures were unacceptable.

He said: "We have reached the point where we can no longer tolerate the repeated, serious and potentially life-threatening nature of these incidents at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh by our PFI provider Consort.

"We are currently consulting with our lawyers to discuss what options we have in relation to the contract and it would be inappropriate to comment further while that is ongoing.

"Patient safety is always our absolute priority and we will not allow that to continually be put in danger by a third party."

Consort Healthcare won the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) contract to build and operate the Royal Infirmary in 1996.

It receives about £60 million a year for carrying out the hospital's non-medical services, such as maintenance, security, cleaning and catering.

NHS Lothian said Consort had "failed to follow critical procedures" by switching off the electricity before surgery finished in the latest incident.

It was earlier reported that the firm was to receive a £100,000 fine over the December incident and a further penalty and disciplinary procedures over the latest incident are expected.

The patient whose surgery was completed by torchlight has received an apology.

Margaret Watt, chairwoman of Scotland Patients Association, said: "Consort have put lives at risk too many times and we should not have to pay for them anymore.

"They have caused distress to patients and we should not have to put up with it. Patients will now worry about going to the hospital and it's not right."

Norman Provan, associate director at the Royal College of Nursing Scotland, said: "This incident is completely unacceptable and it comes at a time when NHS Lothian is already under a lot of pressure.

"It is totally understandable that the health board is going to take action against Consort given the seriousness of this situation. NHS Lothian now needs to reassure the public measures are being taken to ensure this type of error cannot happen ever again.

"Any maintenance work carried out by Consort at the Royal Infirmary must have no possible impact on patients by breaking power supplies or other services clearly critically important to safe patient care."

Consort director Stephen Gordon said the power had been disrupted for around 10 minutes.

He added: "Consort has taken this incident very seriously and has undertaken a thorough investigation in conjunction with NHS Lothian to review the current operating procedures in place for works of this nature."

Labour's health spokeswoman, Jackie Baillie, said: "It just defies belief. We need an independent inquiry to ensure this never happens again."