Recently, during one freezing February night, Street Pastors encountered a lady in need of emergency housing, but there was none available.

So she was taken to the warmth of the waiting room at the A&E Department as the freezing night ensured she was becoming a medical problem instead of a social one.

Raigmore Hospital has a limited number of beds in its coronary care unit which are used to maximum capacity.

If a GP phones with a patient for admission, he is not told to phone back at 9am, as the Street Pastors were told by social services when they tried to find emergency accommodation.

It is someone's job to ensure that a patient is identified for moving out of coronary care to allow the next admission. Can social services not ensure that someone knows where the next emergency housing admission will be sent?

Is someone being paid merely to act as an answering machine service to say: "Sorry–full up. Come back later"?

It will be useful to have list of "sofa accommodation" for such situations, especially on freezing nights.

Dr Donald Boyd, Scottish Christian Party, Rosedene Business Centre, 2 Drummond Crescent, Inverness

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