THE Scottish Government has blamed Brexit for its failure to deliver a long-awaited investment plan to help address a £900m maintenance backlog in the NHS.
Health Secretary Jeane Freeman said the medium-term NHS Capital Investment Strategy had been held up because of Brexit uncertainty and its impact on the Scottish budget.
Ms Freeman promised in October that she would bring forward the strategy by the end of March, a commitment she repeated only last month.
She said it would help ensure “the health and care estate and supporting services are fit for purpose and capable of adapting to and encouraging new models of care delivery”.
She said: “The CIS will take a broad overview of required investment across primary and community care facilities, acute hospital infrastructure, digital technology, and medical equipment and will set out the further steps we will take to support all boards to continue to improve and maintain their estate and asset base.”
Her statement was made after Holyrood passed the budget for 2019-20.
However in a written parliamentary answer yesterday, Ms Freeman announced an indefinite delay.
She said: “We will bring forward our medium-term NHS Capital Investment Strategy as soon as is practicable, following greater certainty on the Brexit process and its potential impact on the NHS capital budget beyond 2019-20.”
Scottish Labour said urgent action was needed given the NHS maintenance backlog rose to £899m in 2017.
Health spokeswoman Monica Lennon MSP said: “This plan was supposed to be in place by April - our NHS estate desperately needs investment to clear a backlog of repairs and keep our people safe.
“This is yet another example of how the Tories’ botched handling of Brexit is taking attention away from the needs of our health service.”
“SNP Ministers must publish this promised plan very soon and before the £899m maintenance backlog they have presided over increases.”
The backlog cost was identified in last year’s State of the Estate report, which found more than a quarter of NHS buildings were classified as not being in a good condition.
The proportion had fallen from 42 to 28 per cent level in 2014.
However half of properties owned by NHS Lothian and NHS Ayrshire & Arran were classed as not being in a good condition, as were three-quarters of those in NHS Orkney’s estate.
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