No decision on hospital location

The issue of finding a site for a new hospital for Orkney remains undecided.

A packed Kirkwall Town Hall was this evening, Thursday, told that the decision to identify the site to build the replacement for the Balfour Hospital is to go out to a further period of public consultation.

The board of NHS Orkney met in private earlier this afternoon, followed by a public session of the board meeting, which started at 6pm in Kirkwall Town Hall.

A two-hour discussion took place in public, followed by a public question and answer session.

It was agreed by the board that the Meadows site should drop out as a possibility over access issues, and the proposed sites at Grainbank and Scapa should be looked at in further detail, while the Corse West site also remains as an option.

A 12-week consultation period, which is expected to start as soon as possible, is set to get underway.

Following the meeting NHS chief executive Cathie Cowan said that it had been demonstrated that the public had been listened to, and there was further technical information which needed to be gathered on the other sites.

She added: “I think that the board made the right decision to support the three sites. This is a precious decision for Orkney going forward, and we need to get it right.”

NHSO chairman, John Ross Scott, also said that NHS Orkney had listened to the public, and would continue to do so.

He added: “The public did have their say, it would have been wrong of us if we had not heeded that.”

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