Pressure builds to get new Belford Hospital
A Highlands and Islands MSP is adding his voice to those pressuring NHS Highland to build a new Fort William hospital.
The new Shadow Health Secretary Conservative MSP Donald Cameron says he will take up the issue of the long-running saga of the Belford Hospital replacement project with the new chief of NHS Highland as soon as she arrives in October.
Pam Dudek, who takes up her new job on October 5, joined the board of NHS Highland on secondment from NHS Grampian in April as interim deputy chief executive.
Last week the Lochaber Times reported that Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch SNP MSP Kate Forbes said plans for the new Belford Hospital had been moving at ‘a snail’s pace’, despite land being acquired five years ago.
‘Members and representatives have participated in good faith for years, and so I know the incredibly slow speed of progress is disappointing,’ said Ms Forbes.
Katherine Sutton, NHS Highland’s chief officer for acute services, said: ‘Much of our business-as-usual activity was paused during the Covid-19 lockdown period while our clinicians were redirected towards managing the response to the pandemic.
‘As we come out of lockdown project teams comprising many of our key clinical staff are being re-established to support taking this work forward.
‘These teams will be considering the delivery of services in the post-Covid world to meet the refreshed challenges in delivering high quality acute services as locally as possible.’
Mr Cameron said: ‘The delay in delivering a fit-forpurpose local hospital for the people of Lochaber seems to be never-ending and is frankly unacceptable.
‘I will be taking this up with the new chief executive of NHS Highland as a matter of urgency.
‘Since I was elected over four years ago, I’ve been working with a range of medical experts and other politicians to move this on and it’s bitterly disappointing we seem to be no further forward.
‘Ultimately, this is a matter for the Scottish Government. The community cannot wait forever and rightly expect to see real progress in the months ahead.
‘Earlier this year, it took just weeks to put up temporary hospitals across the UK to prepare for a surge of coronavirus cases so, clearly, where there’s a will there’s a way.’
Members of Kilmallie Community Council, which held its August meeting virtually this week, agreed to write to NHS Highland for clarification of its plans to get the project back on track.
The community council also agreed to ask Fort William, Inverlochy and Torlundy Community Council to join it in reconvening the partnership of Fort William area community councils to strengthen community weight on the New Belford project.