By Marjory Inglis, health reporter

A FORMER member of Tayside Health Board is calling for a top-level investigation into the scandal of nurses’ uniforms being purchased with charity funds.

Bill Stewart from Dunning in Perthshire said last night it was the “duty” of the Scottish Government to launch an investigation into the raid on hospital charity funds in Tayside.

He reacted with astonishment at the decision by Scottish Health Minister Shona Robison to distance herself from the issue when she visited Ninewells Hospital in Dundee earlier this week. Asked to comment on the situation, she said it was a matter for the health board.

Mr Stewart said Ms Robison and her department had a duty to ensure that charitable donations were spent “in a responsible and correct fashion”.

The Courier has campaigned for more openness regarding hospital charity funds after it revealed that trustees approved spending £400,000 on nurses’ uniforms in a behind-closed-doors decision. Legacies and public donations are given for the extra comforts of patients and staff, while basic services are provided from the £750 million annual budget NHS Tayside gets from the public purse.

There is around £28 million invested in local endowment funds but the donors and the general public have no access to the meetings where decisions are taken about how the donated cash is spent in our hospitals.

The Courier contacted every health board in Scotland and established that all but one discussed charity funds in private.

“It is difficult to understand why the vast majority of the authorities find it necessary to behave in this way,” said Mr Stewart.

“I certainly don’t believe they are acting in the best interests of the benefactors or the public at large. Giving publicity to the generosity of the donors, individually or collectively, would not only provide deserved public recognition of their generosity, it would also encourage others to act in a similar way.

“Where, exceptionally, anonymity had been requested by the donor, this could be taken into account in the proceedings of the endowment committees.

“What was disturbing was the reaction of Scotland’s public health minister, Shona Robison, who, when asked to comment on whether she thought it appropriate for charity funds to be used to buy nurses’ uniforms, stated, ‘I am not going to get into that—it is matter for the board.’

“It is undeniable that the primary responsibility for the decision to use endowment monies to buy nurses’ uniforms lies with the local board.

“But Ms Robison and her department have a secondary and overarching responsibility to ensure all the boards throughout Scotland disburse the monies entrusted to them in a responsible and correct fashion.

“Since there is—at the very least—considerable doubt about the propriety of the nurses’ uniforms decision, then it is Ms Robison’s duty to arrange to have the matter investigated.

“And she would surely not argue, would she, that it is appropriate to leave the judgment on the propriety of the decision to, by and large, the same people who made the original decision?”