£350m Scottish NHS LIFT launched this week

A £350m Scottish version of England's NHS LIFT programme is to be launched this week.

Overseen by the Scottish Futures Trust and known as HUB, the programme will deliver health and community schemes across Scotland via public private partnerships called HUBCos.

The first scheme will be advertised this week. The £60m contract will see a HUBCo set up to deliver health and community schemes to Aberdeenshire and the Highlands in the north of Scotland.

A second £30m deal will be let next month covering health services in Lothian and the Borders in the South East of Scotland.

Another three deals are in the wings which will cover the West; East Central; and South West of Scotland.

Firms are already circling the HUB venture. Likely contenders are said to include BAM, Balfour Beatty, Interserve, Laing O’Rourke, Miller, Morgan Sindall, Morrison and Robertson Group.

A SFT spokesman said health and community schemes will be bundled together under the HUBCos  and delivered either as D&B schemes or via not for profit PFI schemes known as Non Profit Distributing Organisations (NPDO), similar to that used to deliver the Argyll and Bute PFI schools deal.