Rural healthcare in Caithness and beyond has failed its MOT
Holyrood Notebook by Rhoda Grant
Last week the UK government delivered the first Labour Budget in 14 years. It raised working thresholds for those in receipt of carer’s allowance, froze fuel duty and promises to pump an extra £70 billion into public services according to the OBR forecasts – money which is desperately needed to begin the economic turnaround.
Despite some tough choices, I’m pleased to see a Budget that promises to deliver more for working people and offer a brighter future ahead.
In the Scottish parliament last month, the health, sport and social care committee released its inquiry report on rural healthcare. This was sparked by an increase in Scottish parliament petitions relating to rural healthcare and an increase in Scottish Government pledges to address these problems.
Caithness Health Action Team had a petition which contributed to this review.
This is a thorough and welcome inquiry and I look forward to hearing the response from the Scottish Government. In short, its findings and recommendations were not surprising. These are issues that I – and others – have been raising for years. It feels as if rural healthcare went through an MOT and this is the damning report card.
Some areas which I am keen to explore is the recommendation for the Scottish Government to undertake a comprehensive audit of social, palliative and end-of-life care services in remote and rural areas. This is because the inquiry found that a number of rural care homes are in older buildings and that they are unable to comply with modern accommodation standards. With the ageing population, the inquiry found that there is an increase in demand and diminishing supply.
This also adds to problems when care homes owners want to sell because their registration cannot be transferred if the building is not up to standard. The cost of upgrading is prohibitive and therefore it is most likely that the care home closes.
Additionally, I am interested in exploring the inquiry’s findings on the General Medical Services contract with GPs and the challenges of implementing it in sparsely populated rural areas where it is not possible to have teams of health professionals to provide services that were traditionally provided by GPs in these areas, such as vaccination.
Ahead of a winter vaccination season, this was a welcome finding – I have been pushing the Scottish Government on this for some time with little success. Hopefully the committee will be able to make progress.
The inquiry also called for the Scottish Government to develop a suitably flexible policy for reimbursement of travel and accommodation costs, as the current policies have not been reviewed in decades – something I have also been calling for.
Lastly, I welcome the particular focus on the lack of affordable housing and how it is acting as an indirect barrier to healthcare provision in remote and rural areas.
This was an issue I raised in the Scottish Parliament last month in a debate surrounding the national housing crisis. I hope to have a meeting with the Minister for housing to ensure rural homes are delivered in truly rural areas.
• Rhoda Grant is a Labour MSP for the Highlands and Islands.