Government funding pledge for new Balfour Hospital

The Scottish Government has approved funding for a new Balfour Hospital and dental facility in Orkney to meet the health care needs in the 21st century.

Health board chairman John Ross Scott said: “The promise to staff was that if we changed the way we worked and transformed services we would get a new hospital, the promise to the council was that there would be an integrated service and co-locate a new hospital on the same site as the care facility, and the promise to the people of Orkney was that the new facility would meet health care needs in the 21st century.

“All of these promises should be met in the outline business case for the new hospital and I thank all those who have worked so tirelessly over the past three years on developing the blueprint.

“Our focus will now be on making this long term dream a reality as part of our transforming health care in Orkney initiative.”

Scotland’s finance minister John Swinney made the announcement in yesterday’s budget.

He said that hundreds of millions of pounds would be transferred from resource to capital to help finance a number of major projects including, the Balfour Hospital, the Edinburgh Royal Hospital for Sick Children, North Ayrshire Community Hospital, Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary.