£2.5m spent on psychiatric hospital refit

MORE than £2.5 million has been spent regenerating the city's psychiatric hospital over recent years, it has emerged.

The Royal Edinburgh in Morningside has seen a range of structural and administrative work, plus investment in other areas.

NHS Lothian said the cash injection was needed to bring the ageing hospital up to modern standards.

Director of operations Tim Montgomery said: "Although some departments are modern, the main hospital building is quite old, and needed refurbishment.

"Our intensive psychiatric care unit has had major improvements to bedrooms, bathrooms and the public areas, and the estates department had to prepare facilities close by so that patients and staff could move in there during refurbishments. An elderly ward has also been refurbished."

Despite the investment, leaving the site in Morningside is still an option. Health chiefs are considering whether to move some services to Little France beside the ERI or to the Western General.

The children and adolescents unit moves to Sick Kids in 2013.