Psychiatric care boost on the horizon for Caithness patients
Changes have been implemented by NHS Highland which will lead to a senior clinician providing substantive cover for psychiatry in Caithness over the next few months.
That was said by the health authority in response to a call from Caithness councillors for answers over “the significant cost” of providing locum psychiatrists in the north.
They wrote to new chief executive, Fiona Davies, after a Freedom of Information request from a member of the public revealed that almost £8 million has been spent on locum and agency psychiatric services in the Highlands over the five-year period from 2019 to 2023.
A breakdown of the statistics revealed that £1.266 million was spent in 2019; £1.258 million the following year; £1.224 million in 2021; £2.225 million the year after and £1.924 million in 2023 although that is only for 10 months, taking the total to £7.897 million.
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• Caithness councillors demand answers from NHS Highland over £8m locum spend on psychiatric services
By contrast, £1.797 million was spent on such services over the same period by NHS Borders, while the figure for NHS Orkney was £659,459. The amount of money spent on providing locum psychiatrists in the NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde area was £12.728 million.
A spokesman for NHS Highland said: “We share the frustrations of the local community around the challenges of recruiting specialist clinicians to work in remote and rural areas.
“There is a national shortage in this profession, and many candidates prefer to work on a locum/freelance basis rather than a substantive basis. We have a number of consultants and speciality doctors within psychiatry who work with us on a regular and long-term locum basis and provide high quality care to our population.
“We have recently implemented changes which will see a senior clinician provide substantive cover for psychiatry in Caithness over the next few months and we are looking to develop a rota which will ensure service delivery in the area in the longer term.”
He added: “Across our mental health teams, we work through integrated multi-disciplinary teams and care is provided by a range of professionals including psychiatry, psychology, therapists, nursing, and allied health professional roles, as well as our support workers, to ensure that appropriate and timely care can be given. While a shortage of psychiatrists is challenging, they are only part of the system of care and support available.
“NHS Highland has an ongoing programme of recruitment through our Aim High Aim Highland campaign.”
As reported last week, four Caithness councillors – Ron Gunn, Matthew Reiss, Struan Mackie and Jan McEwan – and two from Sutherland contacted Ms Davies about their concerns on the cost of providing locum psychiatric cover in the north.