Consultants to address repairs backlog at NHS

CONSULTANTS have been hired to help NHS Lothian address a multi-million-pound property maintenance backlog.

Gardiner and Theobald, a global firm which specialises in construction and property, will oversee a £10 million investment over two years.

The cash will be used to partially address a £191m repairs backlog facing the health board.

NHS Lothian’s director of operations, George Curley, said the appointment of the consultants would add to existing expertise and see an “ambitious programme of investments” delivered within a “relatively short timescale”.

But Gordon Beurskens, who submitted a Freedom of Information request on the issue on behalf of the Action to Save St John’s Hospital Party, accused NHS Lothian of wasting money.

“It begs the question of what the estate management team within NHS Lothian is doing,” he said.

NHS Lothian refused to reveal how much the consultants were being paid as the details were “commercially sensitive”.