By Marjory Inglis, health reporter

THE COURIER’S campaign for more openness regarding hospital charity cash spending has scored a partial victory.

The call for open access to meetings of charity fund trustees came after it emerged up to £400,000 of charity cash was spent on replacing Tayside nurses’ uniforms, a cost usually borne by the mainstream NHS budget.

Last year it was also revealed that the decision was taken by just two trustees meeting in private.

Yesterday a spokesperson for NHS Tayside heralded a change in the ways of the current charity fund trustees, saying that from next month decisions would be made public.

But the decisions will continue to be made behind closed doors and the public, who make charitable donations for the benefit of staff and patients, will continue to be excluded from meetings of the trustees.

Brief details of the amount of charity cash approved for particular projects are to be published after every meeting of trustees of NHS Tayside’s Endowment Fund, starting next month. The details will be posted on the health authority’s website.

Minutes of each meeting of the trustees will then be published after they have been approved as an accurate record of the proceedings.

The Courier began a campaign for more openness in the charitable fund proceedings last year after a reader asked why endowment fund meetings were not reported.

The answer was simple—meetings were held in private.

However, the reader questioned why the public was excluded when they had a legitimate interest in knowing what happened to the cash they donated for the benefit of patients and staff.

Trustees were challenged to defend their position and it emerged that while there was nothing in the rules governing the charitable fund excluding members of the public, it was the trustees “preference” their meetings should continue to be held in private.

After the initial inquiry about access to meetings was made public, The Courier was given leaked documents relating to the historical decision of a predecessor charitable trustee body to approve spending up to £400,000 on replacement nurses’ uniforms.

More leaks followed regarding controversial decisions to use endowment cash to fund trips to conferences in Europe last year.

Then, after charity fund cash was allocated for these trips, another leak highlighted charity funding of a trip to Florida shortly before Christmas.

It would appear the endowments trustees have given in to pressure and will now give the public limited access to their decision making.

The spokesperson said that publication of brief summaries of the cash allocation decisions would start when the website was “up and running” in March.

The first full minutes would be “posted” following the next meeting of the trustees when they would be asked to approve the minutes of the most recent trustees’ meeting held earlier this week.