Under-fire minister Neil Gray sent one of his employees to speak to furious patients about the Monklands Hospital scandal instead of facing them himself.

A staff member from the former health secretary’s office was tasked with reading out a prepared statement to dozens of angry constituents hoping to question SNP politicians about the party’s 11th-hour U-turn on plans for a new £2.1 billion hospital.

But attendees were left even more enraged when neither Mr Gray nor any of his fellow Nationalist MSPs from the area turned up.

Instead they were met with a statement read by Mr Gray’s office manager, in which the SNP minister said he was on holiday and claimed he had ‘no involvement’ in the decision to scrap the current plans to replace Monklands.

In the statement, Mr Gray said: ‘The way Angela Constance’s statement has been reported in the media and by other political parties has been misleading, scaremongering and untrue. The Health Secretary confirmed on four occasions… that the new Monklands Hospital will be built.

‘The second thing I must address is my own role, as there has been speculation and misinformation spread about my involvement.’

Mr Gray, who was moved from the health brief to cover justice immediately after May’s election, said ‘securing manifesto commitments for the new hospital’ was the ‘most consequential issue I have worked on for you’ and he took credit for ensuring the new hospital would be built at Wester Moffat ‘rather than away out in Gartcosh’.

He claimed he had been ‘recused from the Monklands Hospital project while Health Secretary’ as it was within his constituency.

Angela Constance said the original £2.1billion plan was now too expensive

Neil Gray and John Swinney pose at the site of the new hospital before the election

Ms Constance made the shock announcement 30 minutes before parliament closed for the summer on June 25, leaving opposition MSPs, health bosses, North Lanarkshire Council and residents dumbfounded. Nine weeks earlier Mr Gray appeared in an Instagram video with First Minister John Swinney at the intended new hospital site as they urged people to vote for their party at the election.

In the wake of the SNP’s decision to scrap the plans, residents have branded Mr Gray unfit for office. His decision to send a staff member in his stead comes after former health secretary Alex Neil called on him to resign following the U-turn.

One attendee said: ‘This excuse about being recused because it’s a constituency matter doesn’t really wash with me.

‘He did the job for two years, and then after the election he moves from health to justice. It all feels a bit convenient. There has to be some accountability here for Neil Gray. I don’t think he was fit to be health secretary.’

Another attendee, Fiona, said: ‘They said the government will build a new hospital within their term, but building work isn’t going to start till 2028 and the maximum term is five years, so that leaves three years to build.

‘I’m beginning to think this maybe isn’t going to happen at all.’

Another woman named Mildred said she attended the meeting in Airdrie to take up the campaign on behalf of her late husband who had died from cancer.

She told how they had to take four buses, and travel almost three hours, to attend hospital appointments for him in Wishaw and the Golden Jubilee in Clydebank due to the lack of local provision.

Several independent North Lanarkshire councillors, former SNP councillor Sophia Coyle, deputy council leader Louise Roarty and provost Kenny Duffy came to speak to locals. 

Scottish Labour MPs Kenneth Stevenson, Frank McNally, Pamela Nash and Katrina Murray were also present, alongside the party’s health spokeswoman, Jackie Baillie. 

She said: ‘At the very least the Health Secretary should be coming to explain what their thinking is, because I can only feel a sense of huge disappointment on behalf of this community.’

The Mail on Sunday previously revealed that the government could face legal action by the local authority and contractors who have invested in projects in preparation for the new hospital’s construction at Wester Moffat.

And we reported how NHS Lanarkshire chief Louise Long was notified only an hour before Ms Constance told parliament.

The plans to replace crumbling Monklands have been in development for a decade, with the facility deemed unfit for purpose.