The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Hospital cites Covid-19 and staff shortages as inpatient ward closes
Pitlochry Community Hospital has been forced to close its inpatient ward indefinitely, health bosses have announced.
The closure, described as a “temporary” measure, is being blamed on the ongoing impact of Covid-19 and long-standing problems over the recruitment of staff.
A statement issued by Perth and Kinross Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP) on Thursday said: “This is due to longstanding staffing and recruitment difficulties to the more rural areas of Highland Perthshire, and Pitlochry Community Hospital in particular, alongside the ongoing impact of the Covid-19 response on the availability of clinical staff across the whole health and social care system.
“Anyone in the local area who requires an inpatient stay in a community facility from January 3, will be admitted into another community hospital or care setting in Perth and Kinross.”
This decision means the loss of nine inpatient beds at the GP unit.
However, all other services at Pitlochry Community Hospital will remain open, the partnership has confirmed.
It added that outpatient services, community care and treatment services and the integrated staffing hub, which also supports partners such as the Scottish Ambulance Service will continue.
Gordon Paterson, Perth and Kinross HSCP chief officer said: “We need to make sure we have the clinical staff available to be able to deliver safe patient care in any of our care settings and, unfortunately, we have reached a point where we are not able to staff this one ward in Pitlochry at this time.
“Staff in the ward have been working so dedicatedly for their patients over the past few months when staffing challenges have been quite intense.
“We have looked at all the options to try to keep the inpatient ward open from redeploying staff from other local services and even acute hospitals in other areas of Tayside, to securing more agency and bank staff.
“As people can appreciate, clinical teams are stretched across all services currently and there is simply not the workforce available to us.
“We are extremely disappointed that we have had to take this step to temporarily close the nine beds, but caring for our patients safely will always be our priority.
“It is important, however, that local people know that if they need to have an inpatient stay in a community setting, they will be admitted to another appropriate facility for their care in Perth and Kinross.”
Perth and Kinross HSCP has stressed however that employees affected by the closure will redeployed elsewhere across the local health service.
In addition, a recruitment campaign to attract more clinical staff to the area will continue.
A review of the closure will also be taken by the clinical leadership in January with an update on the future of the Gpinpatient service to be given later that month.