More than 700 appointments were cancelled by NHS Highland due to the public holiday on the Queen's funeral as MSPs call on the health board to 'make good on their promise to reschedule these appointments as soon as possible'
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A total of 725 patient appointments and 19 operations were cancelled by NHS Highland when the board took the decision to have a public holiday for the Queen’s funeral last month.
That provoked a backlash from the public who voiced concerns about mounting waiting times, performance and for those suffering with chronic pain as a number of people labelled the move as “farcical,” “ridiculous” and “terrible.”
NHS Highland went on to say that availability of staff due to issues like school closures was an issue and cancelled appointments were assessed on the basis of “risk, time criticality, availability of staffing and the preference of our patients.”
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That saw a total of 844 outpatient appointments lost on the day – 546 of those were follow-up visits, 179 were new appointments and 113 were cancelled by patients themselves.
And 19 operations were cancelled across the NHS Highland area – three by patients unable to attend, one because a patient was unfit for surgery and one because an operation was no longer required.
But 623 outpatient appointments were carried out across all specialties and sites on the day of the funeral as well as 25 elective procedures in theatres.
Highland MSP Emma Roddick highlighted the personal difficulties that a number of patients would endure as a result of the public holiday, not least of which was health issues while arranging for travel, childcare, and time off work.
“Particularly for those who live rurally and have had to plan travel, childcare, and time off work well in advance in order to have surgery, cancellations will have been very difficult to come to terms with,” she said.
“I also know that many waiting for elective surgery will have been waiting for a long time already, in chronic pain, and losing the certainty of an end date will have been painful in itself.
“I appreciate that many people wanted to show their respects to the Royal family on the public holiday, however, patients deserve respect, too. I hope that NHS Highland will make good on their promise to reschedule these appointments as soon as possible.”
MSP Edward Mountain said: “It’s only right that there was a pause for the country to acknowledge the 70 years that the Queen diligently put her job first.
“I am incredibly sad that there will have been some people who missed their appointments and elective procedures on the day of the state funeral.
“I do hope that NHS Highland will prioritise the rescheduling of these and not allow them to be lost in the morass of outstanding operations and appointments.”
A spokesman for NHS Highland said: “Once a public holiday is declared there are many considerations of which to take account; the availability of staff in that staff have the right to their public holiday, the requirement to receive payment of enhanced rates and the day in lieu.
“The discretion on this particular public holiday, which were in unique circumstances, did require us to consider the staff entitlement to pay their tributes to the sad death of the Queen.
“With other services also not in place such as schools being closed, we had to take account of staff’s ability to be at work. On balance whilst we did not wish to disrupt people’s appointments, we had to balance a number of aspects in our decision making.”
