Edinburgh Eye Pavilion: Doctor's blunt warning on 6-month closure: 'Patients will be harmed'

"Patients will be harmed," one consultant told them.

The Eye Pavilion, in Chalmers Street, is due to close at the end of October for urgent waste pipe replacement and its services are expected to be dispersed to as yet unidentified locations throughout the region.

The building was declared not fit for purpose in 2014. Plans for a replacement hospital- already cancelled once, then reinstated - are currently on hold because of the Scottish Government's freeze on major new projects.

Mr Gray visited the hospital with a cross-party group of Lothian MSPs before making a ministerial statement about the closure in the Scottish Parliament last week.

Lothian Tory MSP MIles Briggs said: "Clinicians were quite clear that this will present harm for patients - patients will be getting services scattered, which will mean they probably won't get on time what they need.

"We were all quite shocked by the H word being used. 'Patients will be harmed' was the sentence from one of the consultants. He was quite brutally honest. There was no 'This is all fine and we'll manage it'.

"Political decisions and emergency closures can have huge, life-changing consequences on people and we're going to see that here in Lothian - there are lots of issues around the quality of life people will have with poorer sight outcomes."

Mr Briggs said he had thanked the consultant at the end for being so candid about the situation. "There is no point trying to sugar-coat the situation we're in and they certainly didn't do that.

"He kind of apologised at the end for being so honest and I said no, that's exactly what we need to hear. It's no use us being told everything will be fine - it'snot going to be and patients and staff know and feel that already.

"The clinicians were quite clear there is going to be a postcode lottery. There already is one in Scotland and Lothian is loing out - patients in Lothian are already worse off because of waiting lists and the state the hospital is in. The closure will add to that."

Edinburgh Southern Labour MSP Daniel Johnson, who was also on the visit, said consultants had gone on to emphasise the need for the promised replacement hospital at Little France.

“It was made abundantly that the six-month closure is going to have impacts that will cause harm, but it also underlines the need to have a replacement. The longer we go without an eye facility that is co-located with the Royal Infirmary, the ability to treat people’s eye conditions is going to be compromised.”

And Lothian Labour MSP Sarah Boyack said: “This facility should have been replaced years ago and its six-month closure is a legacy of this inaction. It is clear to patients and staff that this situation is untenable, and the Scottish Government urgently need to get a grip of the situation.

“They must supply NHS Lothian with the adequate resources to minimise the harm caused by this closure and finally make good on their promise to greenlight a new facility. Otherwise, patients will continue to be failed by a facility that is not fit for purpose.”

Neil Gray said in his statement to parliament that he understood that patients and staff were concerned about “the impact that [the closure] will have on arrangements for providing care, and on waiting times”. “I am sorry for the worry that I know this will cause for many,” he added. “My priority, along with that of NHS Lothian, is to limit disruption and avoid harm.”