6. To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to ensure the sustainability of healthcare services in Edinburgh, in light of the significant increase in the population of the Lothian region in recent years. (S6O-02811)

It is for territorial national health service boards and their planning partners to organise and provide high-quality services that meet the needs of local people in line with national guidelines and frameworks. Those services will be developed over time to account for a range of factors such as population growth, alongside others such as changes in clinical best practice and significant technological developments.

On the Government’s commitment to and investment in local health services, NHS Lothian’s resource budget, which is currently more than £1.7 billion, increased by 28 per cent in real terms between 2010-11 and 2023-24; and by just over 100 per cent, or £874.6 million in cash terms, between 2006-07 and 2023-24.

Population growth in Edinburgh has been significant and future projections are also significant. The Granton waterfront development in my Constituency is projected to bring an additional 10,000 patients to the area by 2028. As I have raised previously, there is a proposal to create a new general practitioner practice in the Ocean Terminal shopping centre, and that could be a quick, accessible and cost-effective way of meeting current demand and creating much-needed additional capacity, as the Minister for Public Health saw on a recent visit to the vaccination centre. I appreciate the current public finance pressures, but will the Scottish Government work constructively with NHS Lothian and the Edinburgh health and social care partnership to seriously consider the proposal for a GP practice at Ocean Terminal?

The member raised that issue with me in September this year, and I am conscious of the significant pressures on primary care services in different parts of Edinburgh, including in the member’s Constituency. He will recognise that the Scottish Government’s approach to capital infrastructure projects is to use existing buildings rather than to build new buildings for the provision of health services where possible.

As I have highlighted to the member in previous correspondence, a decision on whether a particular development at Ocean Terminal could be used as a GP facility would be a matter for the health board and City of Edinburgh Council. However, I can advise the member that I understand that NHS Lothian will be looking again at that issue as part of its capital reallocation and reprioritisation process at its December board meeting. I encourage the member to continue to engage with NHS Lothian as it considers the matter in the coming weeks.

I am glad that the Cabinet secretary mentioned capital. The First Minister committed to a new eye pavilion when he was Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, yet the eye pavilion is still in a building that has been condemned. The Royal Edinburgh hospital is still only in phase 1 of a three-phase plan. The national treatment centre at St John’s is supposed to be a national priority. A new sterilisation unit must be built. My constituents in Lothian are asking where those things are. They are all projects that have been promised in the past. I am not asking where the money will come from—I am asking where the money has gone.

I recognise the member’s interest in issues such as the eye pavilion, the proposed national treatment centre and the Lothian cancer centre. However, as she will be aware, the capital allocation review has had a direct impact on capital projects throughout the country, not just in health but across the public sector. That has happened principally as a result of the United Kingdom Government cutting our capital allocation. That is why so many capital projects are not able to progress. Alongside that, Liz Truss’s disastrous budget resulted in significant increases in the cost of capital projects. [

Interruption

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The Deputy Presiding Officer:

Members!

That means that projects are now well over what they would previously have cost. That, along with the cut in capital, makes it very difficult to take forward capital projects of that nature.