The maintenance backlog facing Scotland’s NHS now tops a “staggering” £1.3 billion after 17 years of SNP mismanagement, the Scottish Conservatives can reveal today.
The figure has been confirmed in response to a Freedom of Information Request made by the party and is a rise of £200 million on figures reported earlier this year by Audit Scotland.
Shadow health secretary Dr Sandesh Gulhane says the scale of repairs are a “damning indictment” as to how the SNP have “shamefully neglected” Scotland's health service for over 17 years.
He says that successive SNP health secretaries have allowed “crucial” healthcare services to fall into a state of disrepair and that they have no plan to tackle the backlog.
Dr Gulhane added that the money which will be needed to deal with these “eye-watering” maintenance costs would be better spent on tackling record NHS backlogs and worsening A&E waiting times.
Scottish Conservative shadow health secretary Dr Sandesh Gulhane MSP said: “The maintenance backlog costs facing Scotland’s NHS have hit staggering levels.
“In the space of a few months, this bill has escalated by over £200 million on the SNP’s watch. These figures are a damning indictment of how the (?nationalists have shamefully neglected our health service over the past 17 years.
“Successive SNP health secretaries have had their eye off the ball and allowed crucial health care services to fall into a total state of disrepair which ultimately impacts patients and staff, as well as health boards' budgets.
“In light of these figures, it is little wonder independent auditors think the SNP have no vision for our NHS when they can’t even support its basic upkeep.
“The eye-watering sum of money that is going to be needed to tackle these maintenance costs only takes more money away from the frontline where the SNP are overseeing record waiting lists and worsening A&E waiting times.
“Neil Gray needs to accept his current approach is not working and change it before these costs spiral completely out of control.”
As of April 2024, NHS Scotland has a record maintenance backlog of £1.34 billion, an increase of around £200 million on the last reported figure. In a FOI response dated 16 December 2024, the Scottish Government confirmed their most recent working figure for the size of the maintenance backlog in NHS Scotland’s estate was £1.335 billion. They say this is calculated using ‘a combination of estate surveys and professional judgement against all of NHSScotland’s estate’, and that they will make a new assessment in '12-24 months’. From Audit Scotland’s records as presented in their February 2024 NHS report, this is by far the highest maintenance backlog on record. (Scottish Government FOI Response, 17 December 2024, available on request).
Audit Scotland’s February 2024 report noted that the maintenance backlog of the NHS estate exceeded £1.1 billion. Audit Scotland noted that this was ‘almost double the total 2022-23 capital budget and three times the future budgets that can be spent to address it.' (Audit Scotland, 22 February 2024, link).