A TEMPORARY hospital built to help the NHS deal with the coronavirus crisis could be used to clear the backlog of thousands of patients waiting for operations postponed during the pandemic, Nicola Sturgeon has said.

The NHS Louisa Jordan was constructed at speed at the Scottish Events Campus (SEC) in April but has not yet been needed to treat any coronavirus patients.

As the health service draws up plans to restart some services, the First Minister said the temporary hospital is being considered to help with this.

She told MSPs: “I can confirm that as part of the remobilisation plans we are looking at whether and to what extent we could use the NHS Louisa Jordan to do some elective treatment.”

Her comments came after Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard said there is a backlog of “at least 80,000” Scots waiting for surgery.

Leonard told the First Minister: “Many are waiting anxiously, many are waiting in pain.

“So we will need to use every available resource to get people booked in for procedures.”

The First Minister’s comments on the Louisa Jordan came as official figures revealed the number of people who have died with confirmed or suspected Covid-19 in Scotland has hit 4000, according to the National Records of Scotland (NRS).

But the number of deaths has fallen for a sixth consecutive week and the proportion of Covid deaths in Scotland’s care homes has fallen below 50% for the first time since mid-April.

The NRS figures show there were 89 deaths related to Covid-19 registered between June 1 and 7, a decrease of 42 from the previous seven days and the sixth consecutive weekly drop. Just under half of coronavirus-linked deaths across Scotland in the week to June 7 were in care homes at 47%, down from 53% the previous week.