The Scottish hospital at the centre of a hygiene row was secretly designed to act as a military treatment centre in the event of nuclear war.

A BBC television programme to be shown tomorrow will reveal that the Vale of Leven hospital, where nine people died recently from Clostridium difficile, was the first hospital built in Scotland after the NHS came into being 60 years ago.

It was unveiled to the public in 1955 as a glittering symbol of the new welfare state, yet its real purpose was altogether more chilling - to deal with casualties in the event of a nuclear strike on the West of Scotland.

The hospital, in Alexandria, Dunbartonshire, was built by the Ministry of Defence, which handed it to the NHS to manage on the understanding that the military would retake control if an atomic war broke out.

The MoD expected survivors from a nuclear strike on Glasgow and the Clyde shipyards to flock out of the city to Loch Lomond for safety.

The hospital incorporated measures to cope with such a massive emergency. Walls between departments and wards were made of a flimsy material so that they could be kicked down to accommodate hundreds of patients suffering from the effects of a nuclear attack. Extra mattresses were stored in the basement and the kitchens were made three times bigger than normal to cope with extra strains of feeding casualties and refugees.

Chillingly, the mortuary was also designed super-size to accommodate hundreds of extra bodies.

Dr William Thomson, medical superintendent at the hospital between 1963 and 1966, revealed that he was even taught how to catch, kill, skin and cook a rabbit so that he could pass on the skill to survivors. He said that he and others who knew of the plans were told to “keep quiet about what we saw”.

“The theory was that atom bombs would be dropped on industrial cities and they thought that particularly the West End of Glasgow would be affected,” he said. He said that it was expected that survivors “would emigrate or escape to the shores of Loch Lomond”. “So the Minister of Defence thought it would be a good idea to build a hospital here to accommodate refugees from the West End of Glasgow. If the bomb was dropped, the partitions that separated blocks to make them into wards ... would all be knocked down to leave big open spaces where injured people could be brought in and laid on mattresses.

“As well as that, the kitchen of the Vale of Leven was three times larger than was needed for a hospital of this size. That was so that they could feed the refugees who they thought would be on the banks of Loch Lomond.

“Another slightly macabre thing was that the mortuary was much much larger than a hospital this size required.”

Dr Thomson said that he and other doctors were told to expect every kind of medical emergency.

“There would be burns, there would be flying fragments of glass and flying fragments of brick, you name it. In a whole town, with an explosion like that, everything would be flying at people, so there would be every injury under the sun.”

He said that he was given unorthodox training to help survivors in the aftermath of a nuclear attack. “We were taught how to teach people how to catch rabbits, skin them and cook them. We were also about the sorts of things you could pick - what sorts of mushrooms were edible and those that weren't,” he said.

“It was so that they could live off the land. We were taught that so we could teach people when we went back.”

The precautions, thankfully, were unnecessary and the Vale of Leven hospital went on to play an important - albeit more routine - role in the NHS.

Pills, Potions & Patients - Scotland's NHS at 60 is broadcast on BBC Two Scotland on Friday at 9pm.

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