Drastic action taken by new management team
Scotland's charity regulator is gathering evidence from Scotland's NHS boards on how they are using their charitable endowment funds.
The announcement came as NHS Tayside agreed to repay millions of pounds into its charitable endowment fund.
After the chair and chief executive stepped down, the health board's new chiefs called an extraordinary board meeting on Thursday 12 April to agree to pay back the money.
Their positions have been filled in the interim by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde chairman John Brown and NHS Grampian chief Malcolm Wright.
Health secretary Shona Robison warned that any other health boards found to have made "inappropriate" use of endowment funds by the charity watchdog would have to pay it back "swiftly and in full".
A spokesman for OSCR said it has opened an inquiry into Tayside NHS Board Endowment Funds.
They said: “This relates to the decision by the funds’ charity trustees in 2014 to fund projects commenced by Tayside NHS Board and the circumstances of that decision. This inquiry is ongoing.”
The regulator warned that it was currently looking at other NHS endowment funds and would announce whether it would be undertaking further inquiries into other NHS-associated funds.
The spokesman said: "We are working with Scottish Government to collect evidence on the use of NHS endowment funds. Once we have considered this evidence, we will provide an update to the public on whether we will be undertaking inquiries into other NHS endowment fund charities."
Issues came to a head earlier in the month when a row broke out over the use of funds from a charity endowment fund, which were used to "retrospectively fund projects" after the board was "faced with a funding deficit" in 2014.
There were claims that this was an inappropriate use of the cash, particularly given the board had to temporarily suspend its constitution to do so.
New chairman John Brown said: "The decision made by the board today doesn't pre-empt the findings of the formal inquiry into Tayside NHS endowment funds by OSCR.
"It does mean that we can move forward, start to rebuild confidence and ensure there are no distractions to continuing to do what we do best and that is making sure everyone in Tayside receives high-quality and effective care and treatment."
