By Marjory Inglis, health reporter

STAFF FEARS that day surgery at Ninewells Hospital, Dundee, will end and patients will be sent elsewhere are mistaken, a hospital boss said yesterday.

Gerry Marr, NHS Tayside’s chief operating officer, said there was no agenda to close down the day surgery unit at Ninewells and send patients to Perth Royal Infirmary or Stracathro Hospital, by Brechin.

Mr Marr gave the reassurance after a health service employee contacted The Courier concerned there were plans to close the day surgery unit in Ninewells.

“This is a facility that will be taken away from Dundee and people will have to go to Stracathro or Perth,” said the member of staff, who does not want to be identified.

The employee said staff had been informed of the proposal several weeks ago and then heard nothing more, claiming the situation was “very unsettling” for patients and staff.

Mr Marr said there were discussions surrounding the future use of a part of the area occupied by several services, including the day surgery unit, hospital porters and some administrative offices. These discussions were at a very early stage and nothing had been decided.

The chief operating officer said that a misunderstanding might have arisen as a result of these discussions.

He accepted that a number of patients from the Dundee area were now being treated in PRI and Stracathro, but stressed there were no plans to completely withdraw day surgery from Ninewells.

“We are absolutely not in the game of moving day surgery out of Dundee,” said Mr Marr. “I don’t think we have got the capacity elsewhere to do that.

“We are not saying to the people of Dundee, ‘You are going to Stracathro or PRI for day surgery’.”

However, NHS Tayside is keen to get the maximum benefit of all its resources wherever they are across the region and is offering patients the chance to go where they will get treatment the quickest, which may not necessarily be closest to where they live.

“We have not made any secret of the fact Dundee people are now travelling to Stracathro and PRI for day surgery,” said Mr Marr. “People of Dundee can expect to and already are travelling to PRI and Stracathro.”

Patients all over Tayside have the choice of waiting for another appointment at a hospital closer to home if they do not want to accept an earlier appointment that might be available at a hospital further away.

Mr Marr said that NHS Tayside monitored “refusals” and kept a record of why patients decided against travelling for treatment. In general, the number of people refusing was “not very high.”

He said the biggest number of refusals came from people asked to travel from parts of Perthshire to Stracathro for endoscopy.

“They are less than chuffed to do that.”