Three sites shortlisted for new Monklands hospital

The three potential locations are Gartcosh, Glenmavis and Wester Moffat

Three potential sites have been shortlisted for a new Monklands Hospital.

NHS Lanarkshire said the sites in Gartcosh, Glenmavis and Wester Moffat all met the necessary criteria.

Gartcosh and Glenmavis were already being considered while Wester Moffat is a new location- identified through a public site nominations process run by the health board.

The local community will have the chance to give feedback on the sites.

A site re-evaluation process will then take place through a formal scoring event in March which will involve a group of 100 people, made up of members of the public and NHS staff.

NHS Lanarkshire will publish detailed information on each of the shortlisted sites by the end of January. This will cover issues such as site history, site conditions, transport and travel information and the costs of site remediation, road infrastructure and construction.

A "health and wellbeing village" will be built on the current hospital site

Following the outcome of the scoring event there will be an opportunity for further public feedback, which will be collated and issued along with a recommendation for a preferred site location in the spring.

Graeme Reid, Monklands Replacement Project (MRP) director, said: "We're pleased that the public site nominations process proved very worthwhile, receiving 183 responses, and has identified the land at Wester Moffat as a new option.

"Eight specific sites, additional to those we had considered previously, were suggested and, following assessment against the five site selection criteria, Wester Moffat was the only viable option among them."

He added: "We also received a number of suggestions that were not about any specific site, mentioning general areas and particular communities or referring to the Gartcosh and Glenmavis sites that are already known to be viable."

Neena Mahal, chairwoman of NHS Lanarkshire, said: "NHS Lanarkshire will undertake further public engagement on these potential alternative sites for the hospital as we address the urgent need to provide a new University Hospital Monklands for the communities of Lanarkshire."

NHS Lanarkshire intends to create a "health and wellbeing village" on the current site of University Hospital Monklands to enable the local community to benefit from community-based healthcare.