Current status: Answered by Angela Constance on 5 June 2026
To ask the Scottish Government when the Capital Investment Group received the full business case for the Lochgelly Medical Centre from NHS Fife, and whether formal approval has been provided.
In June 2022, an outline business case for the replacement of Lochgelly health centre was submitted to the Scottish Government. However, it did not progress to full business case stage and no formal approval to proceed to construction has been provided. In December 2023, all health boards were instructed to pause projects not already in construction due to budget constraints. This included the Lochgelly project, which was therefore not taken forward under previous arrangements.
The Scottish Government is now taking forward a whole-system NHS infrastructure plan to inform future investment priorities. As part of this, a primary care infrastructure investment programme, announced in the Infrastructure Delivery Pipeline (13 January 2026), has identified an initial tranche of 12 priority areas, including Cowdenbeath and Lochgelly.
The programme is focused on areas rather than a fixed number of individual medical centres, the scale and configuration of facilities in each area will be determined through detailed service planning. The inclusion of Cowdenbeath and Lochgelly within this programme supersedes the previous standalone Lochgelly Medical Centre proposal. It may be helpful to clarify that ‘Cowdenbeath’, as referenced in the Infrastructure Delivery Plan, is used in the context of the Scottish Parliament constituency geography, rather than indicating a specific facility such as Cowdenbeath Health Centre. The pilot programme reflects a broader place-based approach, encompassing Cowdenbeath, Lochgelly and surrounding communities. No decision has been taken at this stage on whether elements within priority areas, such as Cowdenbeath and Lochgelly, will be progressed as single or separate projects.
Work is already underway to develop a standardised approach to delivery across the programme, alongside the development of a revenue funding model led by the Scottish Government and the Scottish Futures Trust. This includes consideration of a Scottish variant of the Mutual Investment Model.
Ministers are expected to take decisions on programme priorities and the preferred funding approach during the course of next year, with a further announcement to follow. On current assumptions, construction is expected to begin from around 2031. Funding will be considered as part of these wider decisions.