Axe falls on St Michael's Hospital in Linlithgow

The proposals will see St Michael’s in Linlithgow, which has been shuttered for two years, and Tippethill Hospital in Armadale close as community hospitals offering elderly care beds and dementia care.

These will now be concentrated around a single campus, including existing facilities at Maple Villa and redesigned Craigmair care home site in Livingston.

Councillors who had voted to delay the decision accepted the proposed option to provide complex dementia care on one site through the co-location of Rosebery Ward with Maple Villa on the Craigshill Care Campus. It will also provide frail elderly community hospital provision on the same site as Maple Villa in the Craigmair building, a care home which will be converted.

The move comes as the Integration Joint Board (IJB) has to make savings of more than £13 million in the next three years.

Councillors on the IJB, which oversees social care services provided by NHS Lothian and West Lothian Council, voted against approval of the proposals in June.

They were concerned that they did not have enough information on future provision to agree the closure of two community hospital facilities – fearing a growing elderly population would see a resurgence of demand.

Health officials produced statistics to show that changes based around a Home First care of the elderly model showed that hospital beds were needed on fewer occasions and that, in most cases, care of the elderly can be managed within the home.

The number of elderly people occupying community hospital beds had been dropping even before the onset of Covid-19, as fewer and fewer referrals were made.

Staffing problems caused by the pandemic had prompted the temporary closure of St Michael’s to concentrate beds and resources at Tippethill near Armadale.

Campaigners against the closure have argued that patients and families were discouraged, or not told about the potential care beds at the hospitals and this generated the dropping numbers but health professionals argue that the Home First care proposals were a more effective way of delivering cost effective community care.

Alison White Chief Officer said: “We have invested heavily and significantly in the Home First programme delivering that care and support in their own homes or in a homely setting and that increased capacity has seen a reduction in the number of people requiring hospital based care.”

In her report Mrs White said the preferred option was “all community hospital provision on a single campus in Livingston and the creation of more modern service than currently exists”.

A single site would reduce operating costs, be easier to staff, and provide other services within a short distance of St John’s Hospital.

The report added the single site would provide the: “Ability to meet current demand and flexibility for longer term future bed expansion. Financial savings would be achieved in full through this option – £750,000 for dementia care and £800,000 for frail elderly beds.”

Linlithgow MSP Fiona Hyslop has expressed her deep concerns at the IJB’s decision to officially close the two hospitals.

Fiona has campaigned tirelessly with the Friends of St Michael’s to retain the Linlithgow hospital.

She said: “I am extremely disappointed that the West Lothian IJB has agreed to permanently close St Michael’s Hospital in Linlithgow and Tippethill in Armadale.

"This short sighted decision will only add to an already pressured sector with an ever increasing and ageing population in West Lothian – set to have twice the national average of pensionable aged people in the next 25 years.

“Closing St Michael's and Tippethill when there is bed availability needed to relieve acute hospital bed use by patients seems contradictory based on what NHS Lothian relayed at a meeting held with MSPs in June.”