Taxis used to move blood over 100 miles
NHS Highland claims the journeys, which come in at over £100, are only done in emergencies, but there have been eight such trips since June, totting up to over £1000.
Elizabeth Smith, a public patient representative who sits on several health committees, said: “In these stringent financial times I think it would be difficult to justify unless it was a very urgent case.
“I would be surprised if this was happening as I’ve never heard of it before.”
She said if it was an emergency and there was no other means of transporting the samples then it would be acceptable.
“The problem is the hospital has vans that go up and down to Inverness all the time,” she said. “Unless something happened at a funny hour of the day, I can’t understand why they would need to use a taxi.
“Eight times since June seems like quite a lot and it must be very expensive. You would think there would be a safer method to do it as well.”
Pauline Craw, rural general hospital manager at NHS Highland, defended the hospital’s use of taxis and said it is usually only done in emergencies – in particular when dealing with blood cultures.
“Our first point of contact is always our drivers. However, when they are unavailable, our protocol for many years has been to use an external source,” she said.
She said these instances occur mainly out of hours and at the weekends and from June this year they have sent nine samples by urgent delivery, using a taxi on eight of those occasions.
“We do so when we have patients who require tests which will indicate how best to proceed with their treatment safely, effectively and efficiently,” she said.
“While the cost of taxis is about £130 to £150 per transfer, to ensure a quality and safe outcome, this has to be factored in for a remote community.”
While some would criticise the NHS for spending such an amount of money on taxis, David Flear, patient and public representative on the Highland Health and Social Care Committee, thinks people cannot put a price on someone’s head.
He said: “I’ve not heard of it before, but there must be some reason they’re doing it.
“In an emergency, I think it would be reasonable to use a taxi. The patient comes first and you have to get the best results for the patient.”
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Mr Flear said the question that needs to be asked is whether this is a more regular thing.
“You simply can’t say it’s too expensive when it could be saving someone’s life,” he said.
“I suppose if the hospital were to use their own vehicle, they would lose the use of that vehicle and a person for several hours.
“There won’t just be people sitting around waiting to travel down to Inverness and back – you’d be using someone that could be doing something else.
“The NHS may use taxis in Caithness, but lots of other businesses up here do it too all the time. You come to expect to have to do it in a remote place like this.
“I think if this is just for emergencies then it’s all right, but if it’s a more regular thing then it would be a worry.”