Skye health review welcomed

NHS Highland has welcomed an independent report on the state of out-of-hours urgent care services in Skye, Lochalsh and south-west Ross, which has recommended that out-of-hours urgent care access at Portree Hospital should be maintained 24/7.

Sir Lewis Ritchie, who conducted the review, met community representatives at Jan’s Conference Centre, Portree, this week to share a number of key recommendations from the report.

The report states that Portree Hospital must remain open and services there should be enhanced. In particular, it recommends that in-patient bed availability at Portree Hospital should continue until sufficient alternative provision is provided in north Skye and that further work must be done to look at care at home and care home capacity.

David Alston, chairman of NHS Highland, said: ‘NHS Highland will accept the recommendations, and will now move quickly to consider how, working with the community and our partners, we fully understand the workforce and financial implications in order to implement the recommendations.’

The SOS Skye campaign group and politicians have continually voiced longstanding concerns about NHS Highland’s repeated closures of out-of-hours services at Portree Hospital, as well as concern over the lack of out-ofhours provision for Raasay and Glenelg.