'No plans' to switch emergency and complex Edinburgh eye surgery to Golden Jubilee hospital in Clydebank

But it has still not spelled out what future it sees for the pavilion in Chalmers Street which normally sees 85,000 outpatient appointments a year and was deemed unfit in 2015.

Lothian Tory MSP Miles Briggs met Health Secretary Jeane Freeman on Tuesday but said afterwards he had been unable to get answers on key questions and feared Lothian would be left with reduced eyecare services and more referrals being made to the specialist centre at the Golden Jubilee.

However, the government later issued a statement saying: “There are no plans, and never have been, to move emergency or complex eye surgeries to the Golden Jubilee.

"As an alternative to a full replacement of the Eye Pavilion, we are suggesting that more work be done to develop a more regional – rather than centralised – model of care, which is increasingly how modern eye services are delivered. This includes redesigning pathways to enable patients to access care closer to home, and using the new Elective Centre in Livingston to carry out additional eye surgery to increase capacity in the region.”

Mr Briggs said the statement left too many unanswered questions.

"It still doesn’t answer the question about the future of the current Eye Pavilion or where services will be located. They are not giving us the full picture of what they are planning."

An initial agreement was approved two years ago for a £45m replacement for the Eye Pavilion to be built next to the Royal Infirmary at Little France but now the government has told NHS Lothian it will not fund the project and suggested a more regional model instead.

Mr Briggs said: "There seems to be collective amnesia of what was being planned, why it was being planned. All of a sudden we're being told this isn’t needed – without backing up why, when just a few short months ago, they were ploughing ahead with it.

"I think they don't want to spend any money on the old Eye Pavilion building, they just want to get rid of it and disperse services across the NHS estate in Lothian. This elective centre has become the half-carrot they are trying to dangle in front of Lothian patients, but that will create more issues. Patient transport concerns will be huge, especially when we're talking about people who are visually impaired or blind.

"We know Lothian’s population is increasing and ageing – and that brings with it additional eye needs.

"I realise that a country of 5 million isn't going to have a specialist surgeon in every city, so there will be cases where people get referred to the Golden Jubilees, but Edinburgh and the east of Scotland merit having our own proper state of the art Eye Pavilion. There is a concern this has become a finance decision, not a health decision.”

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