Location of £15m hospital branded ‘seriously flawed’
Report’s author claims distance was a factor in his father’s death
A HOLYROOD committee is asking for the location of a new £15 million hospital to be reconsidered after a study concluded the planned redesign of hospital services on the Isle of Skye was “seriously flawed”.
Campaign group SOS NHS Skye wants the much-needed project to be in Portree, where historically there has been a 12-bed hospital, rather than Broadford, which has a 20-bed facility that is more accessible for the mainland. Holyrood’s Public Petitions Committee yesterday heard details of an economic analysis by Professor Ronald MacDonald, of NHS Highland’s decision to site the new hospital in Broadford.
The need for a new hospital on the island has long been recognised.
In February last year Cabinet Secretary for Health Shona Robison approved the health board’s plan. Under this plan Broadford, as the “hub” facility, would have X-ray and endoscopy facilities, and be able to carry out minor operations. It would also have inpatient beds and offer outpatient chemotherapy, orthopaedic and chest services.
Portree would be the “spoke” facility and only have a primary care emergency centre with GP and nurse cover for minor ailments and injuries. Crucially, there would be no inpatient beds.
Professor MacDonald, of Portree, recently spoke publicly about how staff at the existing Broadford Hospital had failed his father in the days before his painful death, claiming the distance was a factor.
The former Adam Smith chair of political economy at Glasgow University believed his father’s ordeal underlined why a controver- sial shake-up of hospital services should be abandoned.
His paper concludes: “The only way in which the (NHS Highland) Board can justify siting the new facility in Broadford is by using a flawed qualitative analysis and one that ignores the true economic costs of that choice for the relevant community over the next 60 years.
“The fact the board have had to rely on such analysis to determine the site of the new hospital indicates that it is the needs and wishes of the service providers, rather than the users of those services, that are being given priority in this exercise and the broader socio-economic impact is being ignored.”
But a spokesman for the health board said: “The public consultation on the proposals to redesign services in Skye, Lochalsh and South West Ross took place in 2014. There was clear support for a proposed new model of service which would see all the in-patient beds located in a new hospital hub and the current hospital facility redesigned into a spoke as part of a wider redesign of the board’s services. “
The petitions committee will write to the Scottish Government to ask it to reconsider the decision to approve the redesign in light of Professor MacDonald’s paper. The Scottish Ambulance Service will also be contacted for its views on implications for patient transport.
Local SNP MSP Kate Forbes welcomed the committee’s decision. She said: “The NHS Highland redesign of the hospitals on the Isle of Skye is a major project, and it’s important to get it right. “