10. To ask the Scottish Government when the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Wellbeing and Sport last met the chief executive of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde. (S4O-05503)

Ministers and Scottish Government officials regularly meet representatives of all health boards, including NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.

When the cabinet secretary visited my constituency in late November, concerns about the future of Inverclyde royal hospital were dismissed as having “no substance”. However, a recent health board paper has revealed that the hospital’s repair bill has soared to a staggering £65 million, 80 per cent of which falls within the clinical space. Given the sheer scale of the maintenance backlog, does the cabinet secretary now understand why my constituents are anxious about the future of the hospital? Will she now agree to a full public consultation so that the people of Inverclyde can have their say on the future of their local hospital?

I caught most of what Duncan McNeil said. I reassure him that the IRH’s future is very important to local health service delivery. As I said to Paul Martin earlier, none of the issues in the board’s draft discussion paper have formally been put forward for consideration, or been put to me.

Duncan McNeil mentioned backlog maintenance and I will write to him on the detail of that. A lot of progress has been made on high-risk backlog maintenance by prioritising.