Inside Holyrood: Whether it is building the National Treatment Centre or staffing it, both the Scottish Government and NHS Highland need to deliver on time as patients in the Highlands waited long enough
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With the Covid booster programme proving successful and restrictions being relaxed once again, attentions will soon be turning towards the remobilisation plan for NHS Highland.
So many patients have been waiting in agony for their operations since the pandemic began and 2022 must be the year that they begin to see progress towards their treatment.
The hopes of orthopaedic patients were raised last year when NHS Highland indicated that the treatment backlog would be resolved within two years. This was an ambitious target and one that I supported.
However, the emergence of the Omicron variant in December, coupled with the pausing of scheduled elective operations as a response, has meant that the target is at real risk of not being met.
Indeed, NHS Highland indicated as much in their most recent Board meeting, in which members agreed that their current remobilisation is now significantly challenged.
This is not the news that patients would have wanted to hear, and it looks as if NHS Highland will now have to revise their remobilisation plan as a matter of urgency.
Increasing capacity for operations is the solution. However, until the Scottish Government finally deliver the National Treatment Centre, which was initially planned to open last summer, this will continue to be an issue for the health board.
With another ten months to go before the new facility is ready too, we need to recognise that many patients will need treatment far sooner than the end of this year.
That’s why I raised this issue directly with the First Minister and called on the Scottish Government to set out what actions it is taking to ensure the longest-waiting patients will receive treatment in the interim period before the new facility opens.
I am also pressing NHS Highland for assurances that they will have successfully recruited the staff required for the National Treatment Centre to be fully operational by November 2022.
It is therefore a cause for concern that at this point NHS Highland still needs to fill 85% of the vacancies available. We need to see swifter progress if the National Treatment Centre is to be ready on day one.
I will therefore continue to monitor the success of this recruitment programme closely over the next few months.
Whether it is building the National Treatment Centre or staffing it, both the Scottish Government and NHS Highland need to deliver on time. Patients have had to wait long enough.
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