Brain unit: 'Top medics have long feared losing neurosurgery'

THE Scottish Government's refusal to fund Edinburgh's vital new £48 million brain surgery centre with public money is a severe blow to the Capital.

The Department of Clinical Neurosciences (DCN) at the Western General Hospital is a shining beacon of the NHS in Scotland.

But the significance of its proposed move to Little France stretches far beyond its own pioneering work.

The new DCN centre is crucial to the vision of creating a world class new Sick Kids hospital there. It is no exaggeration to say that one simply cannot exist without the other.

Senior medics have long feared the potential loss of neurosurgery from the Sick Kids and its repercussions.

Their concern is that losing such a key specialism would lead the hospital into a downward spiral, effectively a "death by a thousand cuts", which could see its intensive care unit become unviable.

In this light, Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon's decision is both frustrating and disappointing on many levels.

Her ruling leaves NHS Lothian no choice other than to explore the possibility of privately financing the work through the SNP's much-maligned Scottish Futures Trust.

The grave concerns that continue to surround the SFT mean there has to be serious concerns about when, if ever, the money will be found.

It is also hard to see the decision as even-handed when the Scottish Government has committed a massive 522m to ensure specialist services are provided at the new south Glasgow hospital – which is being built in the Health Secretary's own Glasgow Govan constituency.

Furthermore, there is a clear feeling that goalposts have been moved.

To her credit, Ms Sturgeon has in the past supported continued specialist services at the Sick Kids. Shortly after taking up her post in 2007, she gave her backing to specialist neuroscience and cancer treatment at the hospital in the face of great pressure to axe them.

At the time, she stressed the importance of keeping adult and child neurosurgery services together, saying "in terms of paediatric cancer and neurosurgery, one of the key issues is co-location with adult services, and Edinburgh is very well placed for those."

Of course, there is much more pressure on the public purse now than there was in those heady days when Ms Sturgeon and the SNP had first taken power.

However, if there must be cuts and policy changes, it must not mean Edinburgh ends up getting health services that are second best to Glasgow – and to what we have at the moment.