South Scotland Labour MSP Colin Smyth has revealed that the outstanding repairs and maintenance required at Crosshouse Hospital will cost over £29 million.

A freedom of information request submitted to NHS Ayrshire and Arran by Scottish Labour reveals that the last maintenance and repair assessment carried out in June this year shows there over £29 million repair works outstanding. Financial pressures mean that for the financial year 2018/19 the health board has allocated funding of just £3.04million to be spent on backlog maintenance in local NHS property.

Colin Smyth believes it is time for the SNP Government to properly fund our local NHS to tackle the repair backlog.

Colin Smyth MSP said, “These figures are staggering and expose the extreme financial headache currently facing NHS Ayrshire and Arran. With a £23 million deficit, the local health board are struggling financially to keep delivering services but now they have a repairs backlog at Crosshouse even bigger than their deficit.  This simply highlights the chronic underfunding of our NHS by the SNP Government.

The Government cannot seriously still argue that the NHS is being properly funded when such a huge backlog in repairs has built up in just one hospital. Staff and patients are already concerned at how the savings that will be needed to tackle the £23 million deficit will impact on patient care never mind where the money will come from to repair Crosshouse. It’s clear that a lack of investment by the Government is having an adverse effect on the local NHS.”