Wednesday February 18th 2026
Dr Andrew Docherty
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Paul Kelly
A former Borders General Hospital doctor has requested financial disclosures from his former employers.
Dr Andrew Docherty worked at BGH for 15 years as an associate speciality doctor in general medicine and cardiology from the late 1990s to 2012 and has spent more than 40 years working in the NHS.
In the past he has expressed criticism at the low staffing levels at the hospital, poor morale, pay discrepancies between management and front-line workers and heavy workloads leading to mental health issues and absenteeism.
Now he seeking financial details from NHS Borders after submitting a Freedom of Information (FOI) request.
Dr Docherty has made the request to ensure “transparency for all those who use the services of NHS Borders”.
It requests the full time salary and expenses of every member of the NHS Borders Board of Directors for the five preceding fiscal years, both executive and non-executive salaries or non-contractual payments, including expenses.
Additionally, he is seeking the full secretarial and ‘personal’ assistant provision for each individual NHS board member and the expenditure on both secretarial and administration with regard to salaries and any expenses incurred over the preceding half-decade.
His FOI request states: “I wish to know, as do my colleagues, the total extent of specifically delineated administration and management components of all the job plans of department heads and leads aside from their clinical duties and their specific mode of expertise plus expenses allowed.
“This request may require direct consultation with myself or my delegates to harvest the information most relevant to public concerns.”
Selkirk-based Dr Docherty has offered to meet with NHS Borders finance director to guide the process and scope of this request.
He adds: “I acknowledge that this will be a significant undertaking but nonetheless achievable in given time frames.
“We will be flexible in this regard in order to facilitate the extraction of information so urgently needed for members of the public and their representatives to scrutinise the use of their tax and national insurance contributions.
“In addition I require to know what annual leave and continuing professional development leave is applied to each director and any specific budget each director receives for the conduit of Continued Professional Development activities including travelling and hotel expenses.”
NHS Borders, like other Scottish public authorities, must respond to Freedom of Information requests – including those regarding financial information and staff salaries – promptly and within 20 working days following the date of receipt.
The 20-working-day limit applies to the initial request, during which they must provide the information or explain why it cannot be disclosed.
If the request involves complex or voluminous information, the time-frame can be extended. However, the health trust must still act promptly and notify of the reason for the delay.
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