The Scottish Government has announced a new body will oversee the construction of NHS buildings after a catalogue of devastating failures over the last decade.
SNP ministers established NHS Scotland Assure to handle all future replacement and refurbishment work across the health service's vast estate.
Humza Yousaf said the new organisation would work with regional health boards to ensure all buildings are designed with infection prevention and control practice in mind to protect patients.
It follows the scandal of the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital campus in Glasgow which has been plagued by serious infection issues since opening in 2015, despite costing the taxpayer £842m.
The Record revealed earlier this month how an official report found that tragic 10-year-old Milly Main died after “probably” catching a water-linked infection at the super-hospital in Govan.
Milly, who was a patient at the Royal Hospital for Children at the QEUH campus, had been in remission from leukaemia in 2017 when her catheter became infected.
She died days later of Stenotrophomonas maltophilia, a bacterium found in water, soil and plants, was referred to on her death certificate.
A 2019 NHS report found “widespread contamination” in the water supply in both hospitals and 23 kids contracted bloodstream infections in cancer wards between January and September 2018.
SNP ministers subsequently postponed the opening of the brand new Sick Kids hospital in Edinburgh at the 11th hour in July 2019 when the campus failed safety checks on ventilation, water and drainage systems.
The £150m facility finally welcomed its first patients in March after a delay of almost two years.
Yousaf said the new service would improve patient safety but Scottish Labour questioned why it had taken so long.
The health secretary said: “NHS Scotland Assure will support a culture of collaboration and transparency to provide the reassurance patients and their families deserve to feel safe in our hospitals. This service is unique to Scotland and is leading the way in risk and quality management across healthcare facilities.
“With services designed with patients in mind, we can make a real, positive difference to people’s lives.”
Gordon James, director of procurement for National Services Scotland, said: “We co-designed NHS Scotland Assure with colleagues to improve quality and reduce risk in our healthcare buildings and facilities across Scotland.
“NHS Scotland Assure will work collaboratively with health boards to make sure our buildings are compliant with the best available guidance and evidence.”
Scottish Labour health spokeswoman Jackie Baillie said: "Any effort to improve the construction of hospitals and patient safety is to be welcomed, but it is extraordinary that it took scandals at two crucial hospitals for it to be considered.
"As the tragic cases at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital demonstrate, any commitment to patient safety by professionals can be undermined by politicians more interested in delivering headlines than high quality healthcare.
"So, the Scottish Government must urgently confirm what safeguards will be put in place to ensure that safety concerns can't be hidden from the public eye by scrutiny averse NHS bureaucrats or self-interested politicians.
"Without those reassurances it is hard to see this as much more than a PR exercise."
