Highland hospitals are in need of enormous help from NHS Scotland and the Scottish Government.
For hospital visits, we have a commitment that ’95 per cent will be seen within four hours’, but in NHS Highland that figure is only 78.5 per cent.
At the end of May, there were 13,355 people on the NHS Highland waiting list for appointments. Almost 5,000 of these were for psychiatry consultations. Mental health is a major problem; the suicide rate per head of population in the Highlands is above the rest of Scotland.
The percentage of people waiting for three weeks or longer from the referral date for a drug and alcohol appointment is 53.5 per cent, twice as long a wait as the Scottish average of 25 per cent.
As of August 16, there were 181 delayed discharges, the highest level of delayed discharges in seven years, meaning patients are taking up hospital beds whilst waiting for a care home place. The Highland Health and Social Care Partnership report includes the line ‘hospital flow has undoubtedly been impacted by care home closures’.
Fort William’s Belford hospital replacement has now been bumped twice with the hope funding will be allocated in 2028; it was originally proposed for the year 2000. Caithness Hospital is going through an outline business case for re-design. Broadford Hospital is seriously understaffed and Portree Hospital remains open – but only just.
The chief executive of NHS Highland wrote: “With regards to Raigmore, we absolutely recognise the age of the facility and that for the longer term these facilities are not sustainable as they stand.”
We all know of the shortage of dentists in Scotland and in the Highlands it is more acute. We know the dentists in Kyle of Lochalsh, Loch Carron and Ullapool have closed recently.
In Fort William, a member of the public tells me he has been waiting a year for an appointment. In the chief officer’s report on March 1, it was noted ‘no practices within NHS Highland are accepting new adult patients’. Only half of Scots have seen a dentist within the last two years. ‘Conveniently’ the Scottish Government has just cut funding from the recommended two visits per year to one.
What can be done to get the dentists we need? A leading dentist tells me the NHS needs to react to the evidence given at the Skills for Health and Social Care consultation; continue dialogue with the British Dental Association; increase the Remote Areas Allowance that has been frozen for 17 years and ensure that the expenses element of remuneration for dental practices keeps up with inflation.
We struggle to recruit trained medical staff. Why? Scottish universities allocate too few places to Scots for dentist and doctor education as English and overseas students are far more lucrative. Scottish medics are far more likely to want to work here, while others tend to move back to their homeland. The Scottish Government needs to make the education of Scottish medical students a financially viable proposition for our universities.
Highlanders are seriously unhappy about our health sector and everyone will know people who cannot get a dentist appointment are waiting for a hospital operation or mental health consultation, have a friend or family in a care home far too far away from their loved ones or need to see a GP.
We need the Highlands to have a health sector like we used to have and to do that we need the funding required to pay the staff properly, equip them with staff accommodation and ensure we have care homes and hospitals fit for the next 25 years and beyond.
Highlanders seem to accept our lot with little complaint. We need large numbers to petition the Health Minister Michael Matheson to fully fund NHS Highland sufficiently well to do its job and avoid massive cuts on an already limping service.