Health bosses pledge timetable on hospital delayed for 18 years

HEALTH leaders have promised to set out a timetable before Christmas to replace a crumbling Highland hospital that a consultant surgeon was told would be built 18 years ago.

A pressure group that includes the former head surgeon at Belford Hospital in Lochaber said they had been given a “definite commitment” that a timetable to replace Scotland’s busiest rural general will be given in December, following crunch talks with NHS Highland’s new Chief Executive Pam Dudek.

The health board agreed to allocate more senior staff to the project, which has stalled after land was acquired from Tesco in 2015 for £2million.

The campaign has been led by David Sedgwick, former head surgeon at the hospital which is the main centre for mountain trauma, retired GP Michael Foxley and John Hutchison, formerly of Highland Council, who was made an MBE in 2014 for services to rural communities.

Mr Sedgwick says he was told when he was appointed in 1992 that he “would be working in a new hospital within 10 years”.

It is not the first time the Lochaber community has faced a delay for health service improvements – the current Belford hospital opened in April 1965, almost 20 years after a report had recommended a replacement.

Mr Sedgwick said campaigners will be fighting to retain surgical capacity and has said the new hospital could be modelled on Orkney’s new £65m Balfour Hospital, which opened last year in Kirkwall, which he said serves a similar population but has fewer trauma cases.

In September the former head surgeon sent a strongly worded letter to NHS Highland criticising the ‘inexcusable delays’.

He wrote: “Five years after the land was acquired we have inconclusive and postponed meetings, no local project manager, no complete business case, no agreed clinical model – despite determined input by hospital staff.

“The only thing we have is opposition to specific needs, eg two theatres and a safe place for mental health patients.”

Mr Hutchison said the group was satisfied that some progress was finally being made on the project.

He said: “We now have a definite commitment to increase senior staff resources working on the project and to set a clear timetable by the end of this year that defines the steps leading up to the construction of the new Belford.”

Kate Forbes MSP said she was reassured that there was “renewed sense of urgency” about the replacement plan.

She said: “Ultimately, we all want to see a new hospital delivered in Fort William as soon as possible.”

In 2004, plans to make major service cuts at both the Belford and the Lorn and Islands District General Hospital in Oban sparked local protests.

An independent report previously recommended that the hospitals either merge, or be downgraded to carry out day surgery only.

A fifth of the population of Fort William is said to have turned out in protest, forcing health chiefs to put the decision on hold.

Ten years later, hundreds signed a petition calling for ante-natal scans to be re-instated after mothers were forced to travel to Raigmore hospital in Inverness.

The health board blamed national shortages of qualified staff for the service cut.

Professor Boyd Robertson, Chairman of NHS Highland, said the meeting to outline the next steps for the new hospital would happen before December 25.

He said: “We will meet again before Christmas to discuss plans for a refreshed timetable for both the replacement Belford Hospital and wider service re-design.”