Raigmore’s maxed-out intensive care unit sees Inverness and Nairn Lib Dem candidate Neil Alexander warn of ‘growing crisis’ in north healthcare
Raigmore Hospital’s intensive care unit (ICU) has been at or near maximum capacity since March of last year sparking concerns that it may not be able to meet demand when needed.
Neil Alexander, Lib Dem candidate for Inverness and Nairn at next year’s Scottish election, sounded the warning after new figures revealed just how much pressure the service is under.
A Freedom of Information request revealed data showing that between March 2024 and April 2025 ICU beds were mostly 98 to 100 per cent occupied.
The lowest occupancy was 94 and 95 per cent in October 2024 and January 2025.
At the same time, the number of beds was reduced from a high of 17 in 2021 to just nine now, before the pandemic there were just seven beds.
The health board says this is more of a return to normal after the Covid-era saw demand soar.
What has typically happened in recent years is services available at local hospitals were removed to Raigmore, such as maternity, concentrating demand in Inverness.
Questions persist about how services once located in Inverness continue to leak away to other parts of Scotland leading to long journeys to access treatment.
Earlier, Conservative MSP Edward Mountain and SNP MSP Fergus Ewing said both the NHS and Scottish Government must do more to keep services in the Highlands.
Also of concern to Mr Alexander is the ample numbers available in other nearby health boards such as NHS Grampian.
In the last five years at NHS Grampian there were 80 ICU beds available in 2021; 78 in 2022; 80 in 2023; 82 in 2024 and 29 in 2025.
The highest daily average occupancy rate from March 2024 to April 2025 stood at 23.3 per cent, the lowest was 17.7 per cent - and most of the time it hovered around 21 per cent.
That the occupancy rate is five times less than a health board the size of the Highlands is a cause for concern and Mr Alexander worries that lives may be at risk due such disparities.
He argues that pressure on Raigmore has been further intensified by the long-standing concerns over staff shortages at the hospital.
The Lib Dem said a report to NHS Highland in late 2024 showed there was not enough staff to cope with demand at the hospital following a period of centralisation.
“This is not just a statistic, it’s a warning,” he said. “Critical care beds are a vital lifeline for the most severe patients attending our only major Highlands hospital.
“Families across the region rely on Raigmore in moments of crisis. Local healthcare should be just that: local. Right now, Highland residents aren’t getting the healthcare they deserve.
“From Aviemore to Wick, people in the Highlands are being left with a healthcare system that’s stretched far too thin. That is completely unacceptable.
“I’m calling on the health secretary to urgently commit resources to restore ICU capacity at Raigmore. We also need a long-term strategy to tackle the growing crisis in maternity, emergency, and mental health services across the region.”
The Lib Dems are calling for not just the restoration of full maternity services in Caithness and Moray but greater investment in rural health staff, mental health support, and emergency care in the Highlands.
Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire MP Angus MacDonald (Lib Dem) said of the Raigmore figures that “the Highlands has the highest level of delayed discharges in Scotland.
“We urgently need increased capacity in Raigmore to allow waiting lists to be reduced.
“Resolving the issues at Raigmore Hospital is key to substantially improving the health and wellbeing of the Highland population.”
A spokeswoman for NHS Highland said: “Our ICU capacity before Covid was seven beds. During the pandemic this increased as we responded to the extraordinary demand placed on the service.
“As we came out of that response, our ICU bed numbers returned to a new baseline of nine following extra funding from the Scottish Government as part of a nationwide uplift in intensive care capacity.
“Demand for critical care beds fluctuates markedly. With the relatively recent co-location of ICU with the High Dependency Unit (HDU) and the establishment of enhanced nurse training, we are able to respond readily to expected, ordinary surges in clinical demand.
“There are, and will always be, occasions when we are not able to accept patients into our critical care unit. This may be due to clinical, logistical or staffing issues and is not unusual across critical care units nationally.
“To ensure that our patients receive the care they need, we work together with other critical care units across Scotland, receiving and also giving mutual aid as local and national demand fluctuates.”
