Glasgow’s NHS Louisa Jordan hospital, which was set up to provide additional intensive care beds for an anticipated surge in covid-19 cases, has not treated any patients, Nicola Sturgeon said today.

The temporary hospital could instead be used as a centre to clear a backlog of cancelled non-covid NHS operations, under plans being considered by the Scottish Government.

Although the hospital had not been needed, the First Minister said she did not regret establishing the facility, which could have provided up to 1,000 extra beds.

The Louisa Jordan formed part of a commitment to quadruple the number of intensive care beds in Scotland’s NHS.

But admissions to intensive care units did not overwhelm NHS capacity as feared and have been falling steadily since they peaked on the 29^th March when 28 patients were admitted in one day.

This follows a leading surgeon calling for the empty facility to be converted into a surgery hub for elective operations such as hip replacements and cataracts.

Professor Michael Griffin of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh warned there would otherwise be “a huge waiting list of routine elective surgery”.

Speaking today, Ms Sturgeon said she was “absolutely delighted” the surge in capacity had not been needed.

“Had we had to use the hospital for that, then we would have been dealing with many, many more people being seriously ill, and as a result of that probably more people dying because the capacity of our existing hospitals would have been exceeded,” she said.

“I am still absolutely of the opinion that it was right to prepare it as a contingency, because I wouldn’t have wanted to be in a position where we didn’t have that capacity should we have needed it.

Ms Sturgeon said using the spare capacity at the NHS Louisa Jordan was “one of the things” being looked at to resume paused hospital procedures.

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