First Minister questioned about failures at NHS Highland amid row over 78 week surgery wait
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For the second week in a row First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has been questioned about serious problems at NHS Highland.
Highland regional MSP Edward Mountain sought answers at First Minister’s Questions after a constituent complained about orthopaedic waiting times at the troubled health board.
Mr Mountain challenged Ms Sturgeon to urgently resolve the issue of some patients being forced to wait up to 78 weeks for surgery.
He said: “Last week, I asked the First Minister about the poor financial management of NHS Highland. In the past I’ve asked her about the appalling bullying in NHS Highland.
“This time I rise to ask about the 78-week delay for orthopaedic operations in NHS Highland, with only 54 per cent of patients getting operations within the treatment time guarantee.
“First Minister, what have you asked the Cabinet Secretary to do to resolve these serious issues?”
Ms Sturgeon said: “Well, I hope Edward Mountain would be very familiar with the actions the Health Secretary is taking, in terms of the allegations around bullying and the Sturrock report that looked into these issues in NHS Highland.
“We work closely with NHS Highland and indeed other health boards in terms of their financial management and we are putting record funding into the health service.
“There is an £850 million waiting times initiative targetting waits that are too long in the NHS.
“And of course the most recent Audit Scotland report, while it had many important things to say, also recognised that in the face of rising demand performance was improving against most of these waiting times targets.”
Commenting after the exchange Mr Mountain said: “The First Minister’s words will be cold comfort to patients in the Highlands who are suffering with excruciating pain and putting their lives on hold as a result.
“I welcome the £850 million funding to cut waiting times but the First Minister neglected to mention that only £7 million of that funding has gone to NHS Highland so far.
“No one should have to wait around 18 months for surgery, especially as Nicola Sturgeon promised they could expect treatment with 12 weeks.
“It is about time this Scottish Government stopped ignoring the Highlands and helped resolve the issues of our NHS service.”
Earlier, a spokeswoman for NHS Highland said: “We recognise that the wait for orthopaedics is too long and we would like to apologise for any added stress this is causing to our patients.
“We have an increasing older population which is placing a greater demand on the service and we have also seen a lot of trauma cases with the increased number of visitors to the area.
“We will be running additional sessions throughout November and December and are using all the capacity available to us including the available capacity at the Golden Jubilee [in Glasgow]. We are also about to advertise for an additional consultant.
“NHS Highland is currently working with the Scottish Government to develop an Elective Care Centre which will provide additional capacity for orthopaedics.”
