7. To ask the First Minister what plans the Scottish Government has for NHS Louisa Jordan, in light of reports that it has awarded a contract for its decommissioning. (S5F-04433)

The lease for the Louisa Jordan currently runs until the end of April 2021. If it is necessary to do so, we will negotiate an extension to the lease if the facility is still needed to support our pandemic response. In the meantime we are, perfectly sensibly, putting in place arrangements to allow the facility to be decommissioned when it is eventually no longer needed.

Currently, the Louisa Jordan is being used for out-patient clinics, diagnostic tests and educational activities. So far, thankfully, it has not been required for Covid patients, but the reason why we have extended its lease is so that it is there over the winter period should it prove to be necessary.

I thank the First Minister for her response. NHS lockdown is having serious impacts on treatment, waiting times and patient care, and, worryingly, it was reported this week that a higher number of patients are presenting with more a dvanced forms of cancer. Although it is good that we have the temporary additional capacity at the Louisa Jordan helping to alleviate the non-Covid pressures that the First Minister outlined, it does make me wonder how many Louisa Jordans we would need to clear the waiting times backlog.

In the light of the pressures on the NHS estate in terms of space requirements and physical capacity—we know that there is a maintenance and repairs backlog of almost £1 billion and that 10 per cent of those repairs are classed as high risk—what is the Government doing to support the NHS estate across Scotland and to increase that capacity? How is the First Minister going to do that in the next few months?

The First Minister:

There is an on-going maintenance programme in the NHS, which is important in ensuring that the current estate is in the state that it needs to be in. Obviously, one of the issues that we have had to deal with in the past six months is reduced capacity because health boards and hospitals have had to deal with Covid and also make sure that there is capacity to deal with it should cases rise.

The NHS Louisa Jordan was originally put in to make sure that, if we needed extra capacity for Covid, it would be there. It will be available over the winter if we need it, but it is not needed for that right now, and it is helping to do other things. In the period between the beginning of July and the middle of September, around 2,000 people were seen at the Louisa Jordan, and the intention is to increase out-patient clinics there over the next few weeks. That facility is helping to mitigate reduced capacity in other hospitals because of the need to make sure that there is a Covid contingency in them.

Next week, the health secretary will set out plans for the winter and how the national health service intends to cope with the variety of winter pressures that it faces. At that stage, she will also give an update on the on-going progress to remobilise the NHS and restart services that were paused because of Covid.

The Presiding Officer:

There are a couple of supplementary questions.