NHS Highland
TypeNHS board
HeadquartersAssynt House
Beechwood Park
Inverness
IV2 3BW[1]
Region served
Hospitals
Staff8,564 (2018/19)[2]
Websitewww.nhshighland.scot.nhs.uk

NHS Highland is one of the fourteen regions of NHS Scotland. Geographically, it is the largest Health Board, covering an area of 32,500 km2 (12,500 sq mi) from Kintyre in the south-west to Caithness in the north-east, serving a population of 320,000 people.[3] In 2016–17 it had an operating budget of £780 million.[4] It provides prehospital care, primary and secondary care services.

Organisational structure

NHS Highland is composed of two Health and Social Care Partnerships (HSCPs):

  • The Argyll and Bute Health and Social Care Partnership covers the local government area of Argyll and Bute.[5]

History

On 1 October 2001 NHS Highland health board was established. NHS Highland's first board members were announced 10 days later.[6] In 2005 Community Health Partnerships (CHPs) were introduced.

On 1 April 2006, NHS Highland took over responsibility for part of the former NHS Argyll and Clyde region (corresponding approximately to the Argyll and Bute council area), the other part of which was transferred to NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.

On 1 April 2012 NHS Highland became the lead agency responsible for Adult Social Care services, with the council taking over issues relating to children.[7]

It directly employs over 10,500 people and there are also around 1,000 primary care staff in the region.[8]

In December 2014, Broadford, Skye was chosen as the site for a new hospital, after a consultation process.[9] Some campaigners had hoped that the central hub of services in Skye could have been based at Portree Hospital; however the Scottish Health Council has pronounced the process followed by the board as legitimate.[10]

In 2017, the board reduced the number of main administrative buildings: refitting Assynt House, which the board owns, and reorganising Larch House, which is leased.[11]

In 2017 the Highland PICT Team is started as a trial.

In 2020, Skyports, a drone delivery service provider, began delivering pathology samples, medicine, essential personal protective equipment and COVID-19 testing kits in Argyll and Bute. Delivery should take only 30 minutes, where previously it has taken 48 hours. Communication will be provided by Vodafone's 4G network and satellite communications. The plan is to integrate the operation into the local NHS supply chain.[12]

March 2022, the PICT Team was awarded Highland Hero Emergency Services Hero of the Year.[13][14]

Training initiatives

In 2011 NHS Highland announced it would be running a week-long "boot camp" for junior surgeons at Raigmore Hospital, Inverness.[15]

Prehospital Care

Response car used by PICT Team

NHS Highland funds and runs a specialist pre-hospital care team comprising a senior doctor and an advanced practitioner (nurse or paramedic). This is known as the Prehospital Immediate Care and Trauma (PICT) Team. The name being a play on words in relation to the Picts, the group of peoples who lived in what is now northern and eastern Scotland (north of the Firth of Forth) during Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. The team was the winner of the 2022 Highland Heroes awards in the category of Emergency Services.[16]

PICT currently operates 12 hours per day, seven days a week,[17][18] responding to around 150 patients a month.[19] The PICT Team responds by land to major trauma (as an integrated part of the Scottish Trauma Network)[20] and critically unwell patients in the Highlands of Scotland. The doctor on the PICT Care will also assume the role of the medical incident officer when required at a major incident. The PICT Team have attended a variety of incidents, including aircraft crashes, road traffic collisions, stabbings, shootings and critically unwell patients.

NHS Highland announced in early 2022 that they would defund the Inverness PICT Team, in steps which will leave the Highlands and Inverness without a seven-day physician-led enhanced care service.[21][22] This led to the local MSP Sir Edward Mountain to campaign to save this prehospital resource from defunding.[23] Mountain stated that

"This pioneering service is essential when responding to major trauma incidents across the Highlands – we simply cannot afford to lose it."[23]

Hospitals

NHS Highland is responsible for a number of different types of hospital - a large district general hospital, 3 rural general hospitals, a psychiatric hospital and a number of community hospitals

Primary Care

The board started tests of the GP Near Me service with patients of Riverview Practice in Wick, Caithness in October 2018; with patients booking video appointments if a face-to-face appointment is not required. A similar system NHS Near Me has been used in Caithness for hospital outpatient appointments.[24]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "General Enquiries". NHS Highland. Retrieved 5 December 2019.
  2. ↑ "Annual Report and Accounts for the year ended 31 March 2019" (PDF). NHS Highland. Retrieved 23 January 2020.
  3. ↑ "About NHS Highland". NHS Highland. Retrieved 18 July 2014.
  4. ↑ "NHS Highland CV". NHS Highland. Retrieved 4 September 2017.
  5. ↑ "Argyll and Bute Health and Social Care Partnership". NHS Highland. Retrieved 10 October 2017.
  6. ↑ "Highland NHS Board" (Press release). Scottish Government. 11 October 2001. Retrieved 18 July 2015.
  7. ↑ Ross, Hugh (29 February 2012). "Making sense of a new care system..." Inverness Courier. Retrieved 6 September 2017.
  8. ↑ "NHS Highland Medical Director". BMJ Careers. Retrieved 13 June 2014.
  9. ↑ "Broadford on Skye chosen for new hospital". BBC News. 2 December 2015.
  10. ↑ "Protest opposes Skye and Lochalsh hospital plans". BBC News. 22 June 2015. Retrieved 13 July 2015.
  11. ↑ Sweeney, Val (5 February 2017). "Health staff on the move as £100m savings sought". Inverness Courier. Retrieved 6 September 2017.
  12. ↑ "Space-enabled drone deliveries aid COVID-19 response in Scotland". Building Better Healthcare. 13 July 2020. Retrieved 30 August 2020.
  13. ↑ "Highland Heroes from across the region are crowned". Inverness Courier. 24 March 2022. Retrieved 25 March 2022.
  14. ↑ "Emergency response team delighted with 'wonderful' award". Strathspey Herald. 25 March 2022. Retrieved 25 March 2022.
  15. ↑ "NHS Highland runs 'boot camp' for consultants". BBC News. 5 May 2011. Retrieved 30 May 2014.
  16. ↑ "Highland Heroes - Nominate now". HN Media. Retrieved 2 March 2022.
  17. ↑ Maclennan, Scott (20 January 2022). "'World-class' Highland trauma team must get health board support, says MSP". RossShire Journal. Retrieved 25 January 2022.
  18. ↑ Maclennan, Scott (20 January 2022). "NHS Highland's refusal to fund a 'world class' lifesaving trauma team sparks questions". Inverness Courier. Retrieved 25 January 2022.
  19. ↑ "Highland PICT". Twitter. 22 February 2022. Retrieved 2 March 2022.
  20. ↑ "STN Minimum Requirements for Pre-Hospital Care" (PDF). 2017.
  21. ↑ "'World-class' Highland trauma team must get health board support, says MSP". RossShire Journal. 20 January 2022. Retrieved 23 January 2022.
  22. ↑ "Supporters of a 'world class' lifesaving life-saving trauma team demand a rethink". Inverness Courier. 21 January 2022. Retrieved 23 January 2022.
  23. 1 2 Maclennan, Scott (18 February 2022). "Highland MSP Edward Mountain calls for medical trauma response team to be saved". Inverness Courier.
  24. ↑ "NHS Highland trials GP Near Me video service in Wick". Digital Health. 29 October 2018. Retrieved 2 December 2018.
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