STAFF and patients waiting to move to Edinburgh's new children's hospital remain in limbo after health bosses said it was "not possible" to give any timeline for when the facility will be ready.
Susan Goldsmith, NHS Lothian's director of finance, said the project team were "sorry and devastated" about the impact of the delays, but stressed that investigations into what went wrong should not be about blame.
Ms Goldsmith, who is heading the Incident Management Team in charge of fixing the hospital, said: "This is not about blame, it's about better understanding."
NHS Lothian is also unable to say whether the bill for remedial works would fall to taxpayers or IHSL Ltd, the private consortium which built and owns the hospital.
A spokeswoman said they could not answer until they know "what needs to be done".
The Royal Hospital for Children and Young People was supposed to open on July 9, more than two years later than originally planned.
However, an inspection just days before discovered problems with the ventilation in critical care and the move was cancelled.
READ MORE: Same contractor linked to three troubled Scottish hospital builds
Speaking at today's health board meeting - the first since the crisis - Ms Goldsmith said further safety checks were now being carried out on all patient areas and a sample of non-clinical areas as a precaution.
Drainage is also been evaluated amid claims it is "not fit for purpose" and putting the hospital at risk of flooding.
Ms Goldsmith said NHS Lothian and the IHSL Ltd had now reached an agreement on how to fix critical care ventilation and that she expects to be able to put the procurement options and technical solutions to NHS Lothian's Oversight Board on Thursday.
Consultants KPMG are carrying out an independent audit of the governance around the hospital project, and the factors leading to the delay.
A technical review is also being jointly led by Health Facilities Scotland and Health Protection Scotland to verify that the facility's design and build will meet necessary standards.
The HFS/HPS report is expected in early September and Ms Goldsmith stressed that until then no decisions could be taken about when to begin admitting patients from the existing children's hospital.
She added the health board would consider opening the hospital gradually.
She said: "A decision can't be taken until September but we will look at the potential advantages of a phased migration.
"But it's not possible at this point to give any timeline for migration."
READ MORE: NHS Lothian paid extra £11.6m for new hospital after advice not to sue consortium
Chairman of NHS Lothian, Brian Houston, said: "I don't think I can overstate the level of disappointment we've felt at what has occurred, especially in terms of the impact it has had on staff and patients.
"But I think we should pay tribute to our remarkable staff who have buckled down and got on with it and been running the service, business as usual, without compromising care."
It comes after a report by Audit Scotland detailed how NHS Lothian paid an extra £11.6 million to IHSL Ltd to carry out a number of technical fixes on the project, relating to drainage, heater batteries and void fire detectors.
The payment, approved by the health board and Scottish Government, followed legal advice that it would be too risky to sue the consortium in court despite NHS Lothian's insistence that many of the issues needed remedy because they "were materially non-compliant with the original specifications".
The health board will also have to pay IHSL Ltd millions of pounds a month for maintenance and management fees for the next 25 years because the hospital was built under a Non-Profit Distributing (NPD) system - the Scottish Government's version of PFI.
NHS Lothian also had to pay £80m for "enabling and equipment works", over and above the £150m construction cost for the building.
It means the total cost of the project to taxpayers will exceed £440m.
However, Health Secretary Jeane Freeman stressed that the £80m costs were "not new", amid reports that the combination of the enabling and equipment works highlighted in the Audit Scotland report plus the £11.6m had added £90m to the hospital project's bill.
Ms Freeman said: "Reports in the media referencing a further £90 million for the new children's hospital are inaccurate and misleading.
"To date, the only additional payment since this full business case was approved is the £11.6 million settlement agreement for drainage, which has already been reviewed by the external auditor at Audit Scotland's request.
"The £80 million figure contained within this for enabling and equipment works has never been part of the £150 million contract for the hospital and was part of the approved business case, which was made publicly available on the board's website following approval in 2015.
"It is not a new or unexpected cost for the site or connected to the delay."
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