MSPs accuse NHS Highland of being too afraid of Scottish Government to fight to retain services as Edward Mountain and Fergus Ewing fear that leads to ‘adverse outcomes’ for patients

NHS Highland’s board has been accused of being too afraid to fight to retain local services – with patients suffering as a result.

Many services once located in Inverness are now leaking away to other parts of the country, forcing many patient to take long journeys for treatment including to Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow.

Highland Conservative and SNP MSPs Edward Mountain and Fergus Ewing are concerned local services are being “run down”, leading to “adverse outcomes” for patients.

Raigmore Hospital’s last vascular surgeon resigned in March saying he could no longer safely conduct operations.

The lack of vascular surgery has considerable knock-on impacts.

And there were warning signs of decline going back at least as far as 2018 when the region’s last interventional radiologist at the time retired.

Pressures were also added with the new GP contract moving vaccinations from general practice to NHS Highland.

‘No evidence that they will speak out against the civil service in Edinburgh’

Mr Mountain said: “I am deeply concerned that services are being run down at NHS Highland, are being drawn down to the Central Belt, forcing Highlanders to travel and needlessly resulting in adverse outcomes for patients.

“I fear the NHS Highland board is not doing nearly enough to fight this with NHS Scotland, which is excessively focussed on service delivery in population centres meaning the Highlands will always lose out.

“There is evidence to support this – we have already lost an interventional radiologist and more recently Raigmore’s last remaining vascular surgeon resigned because he could not offer safe procedures.

“Once you start degrading the availability of one specialism, others soon follow because so many are intrinsically linked; what I am worried about is a domino effect of one speciality going after another.

“This is entirely wrong because Raigmore has as many surgical theatres that can conduct such procedures as almost any other health board in Scotland and then there is the example of the National Treatment Centre.

“If patients can travel from elsewhere to the NTC in Inverness then they can travel for other procedures as well so why is it that only Highlanders have to travel such great distances? It isn’t right.

“Ultimately, this is not solely about where resources go but about the safety of patients who I believe suffer more adverse outcomes when they have to travel great distances for procedures.

“Not only is it a burden financially and emotionally for people but they are moved far from loved ones who can visit and support them in hospital and anyway who wants to travel after an operation?

“NHS Scotland needs to have a national vision for the delivery of care that includes the view that Highlanders should not be medical commuters to get the best healthcare.”

Mr Ewing believes there is a lack of responsiveness to the issues the Highlands is facing, saying: “I have deep misgivings that the management of NHS Highland are ready to stand up for the preservation of medical services provided in the Highlands.

“They have refused to return services like vaccination to GPs, despite proof that by doing so they would not only better serve the patients and provide a safe service – and also save millions of pounds every year.

“There is no evidence that they will speak out against the civil service in Edinburgh and my fear is that there may be further loss of services following the failure to deliver the new model of vascular services that Professor Stoneybridge recommended.

“They do need to provide more services from GPs locally but seem both unable and unwilling to do so for fear of falling foul of the Scottish Government and perhaps in particular the NHS top brass in Edinburgh.”

Health secretary responds

Health Secretary Neil Gray said: “In the two years since its opening, the National Treatment Centre Highland has provided life-changing treatment to thousands of people living in the North of Scotland - seeing patients travelling to the Highlands for treatment rather than the other way round.

“We’re focused on delivering a renewed and stronger NHS in Scotland - one that continues to be patient-centred and is focused on increasing productivity and capacity, delivering 150,000 extra appointments and procedures in 2025-26.

“We have allocated record investment of £21 billion to Health and Social care this year. This funding will support health boards to clear backlogs, substantially improve wait times and tackle 8am lottery for GP appointments.”

A spokesman for NHS Highland said: “Clinical services in every board are agreed with Scottish government colleagues according to an annual delivery plan which is linked to local and national strategies.

“This planning is affected by available workforce, facilities, staffing, budgets and clinical standards.

“The greatest challenge to NHS Highland is in workforce recruitment, as there are national shortages throughout the UK in many specialties including vascular surgery and interventional radiology.

“The few who are trained each year are recruited into very large units which offer the most specialised of services. International recruitment can help but in the long term there is a clear need to boost UK training of required specialists.

“We know that every day a patient has to wait can cause stress and anxiety that we should be trying to minimise. We are committed to developing innovative ways of working to ensure we can strengthen the services we deliver to improve our overall performance levels.

“Safety and quality are at the forefront of all of our service planning, and we provide as many procedures locally as is safe to do”.

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