Edinburgh's new cancer centre 'won't be ready until 2030'

PATIENTS face having to wait a decade for a promised new cancer centre at Edinburgh’s Western General Hospital which was previously scheduled to open in 2025, an MSP has claimed.

Lothian MSP and Tory health spokesman Miles Briggs said it was “totally unacceptable” that the £300 million replacement for the current cancer centre at the hospital was being delayed for another five years.

Work is currently under way to refurbish parts of the existing centre so it can continue to be used until the new one - which will serve the whole south-east of Scotland - is ready.

But Mr Briggs said the temporary measures were based on the new centre opening in 2025.

And he said he feared the fiasco behind the new Sick Kids hospital and the remedial work needed to get it open was behind the delay in the cancer centre timetable.

He said: “I was told in 2018 by the then Health Secretary Shona Robison that the new cancer centre would open in 2025. Now the health board is telling me it is likely to be a decade before we see it.”

He raised the issue with Health Secretary Jeane Freeman in the Scottish Parliament, but she said the timetable was driven by NHS Lothian, not the government.

She said: “NHS Lothian is at stage one of its business case, which will come into the Scottish Government. We will turn it round quickly, provided that it is satisfactory, and NHS Lothian will then move to the outline business case. Outline business cases can take another two years to go through the process.” She added that the Scottish Government planned to invest £20m to support the provision of cancer services in a safe environment until the new centre was ready.

Mr Briggs said: “I accept these things have to be planned, business cases have to be put together, but somewhere over the last two years a five-year delay has occurred.

“The government is happy to blame Lothian, but it’s not acceptable to see that slippage.

“Yes the current centre is being patched up, but it needs to be replaced.

“I’m concerned that the disaster around the management of the Sick Kids has resulted in this delay because the Sick Kids is first in line to be sorted. The knock-on effect seems to be that what was meant to be 2025 now seems to be 2030 instead.

“I’m concerned the current centre will be in use way beyond when it was meant to be. It will end up costing the taxpayer more if in five years we have to start asking for more money to patch up an already patched-up cancer centre.”

NHS Lothian deputy chief executive Jim Crombie said: “We are planning a world-leading cancer centre and we are currently working with our regional partner boards to develop an Initial Agreement to submit to the Scottish Government. The expected completion date for the project will be determined through the business case process and will depend on a number of factors, including availability of funding.

“While those processes are underway, we have taken the interim step of enhancing and upgrading the current facilities for patients and staff. The haematology and oncology areas, including the assessment unit and inpatient wards, within the hospital are being refurbished and extended. A new renal dialysis unit will also be created.

“I would like to thank patients, families and staff for their patience while this work is ongoing. We are absolutely clear that this is an interim solution and our ambition remains to build a new leading cancer centre.”