Four hospitals across Scotland will continue to offer brain surgery after officials rejected plans to centralise services, it has been announced.
But health minister Shona Robison said the hospitals in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee will have to work more closely together as a national service.
Campaigners had feared brain surgery services could be concentrated on a single site in either Glasgow or Edinburgh, a plan branded by the Unite union as a “death warrant” for offshore workers.
It argued that many lives have been saved because accident survivors can be airlifted from North Sea installations to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.
Welcoming the announcement, Aberdeen North MSP Brian Adam said: “This decision is a victory for all those local campaigners who took their case to parliament and made sure that the needs of the north east were heard loud and clear.”
Announcing the decision during a visit to the neurology unit of Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, Ms Robison said the “innovative” proposal by the expert group would see all four hospitals providing services locally, while also promoting a “uniformity of care” that does not exist at present.
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