Travelling consultants cost NHS Highland £1m
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CONSULTANTS who travel around the Highlands to hold clinics cost NHS Highland about £1 million.
That was revealed by the health authority in response to questions posed by North of Scotland Newspapers as part of its SOS campaign.
NHS Highland says the way out-of-hours surgical cover is provided at Caithness General Hospital is unsustainable and is looking at a new model. It would involve recruiting surgeons on a Highland-wide basis and getting them to work at various locations throughout the north.
Asked how the European Working Time Directive would impact on these plans, NHS Highland spokeswoman Maimie Thompson said: “They would still comply with the directive just as they do now.
“It’s not a new thing for colleagues to travel. But it is a balancing act between providing local care and people having to travel to access specialists consultations.”
Ms Thompson said tele-med clinics such as diabetes and renal at Caithness General is one way of meeting both but admitted it is a challenge.
“We spend around £1 million for consultants to drive around the Highlands to allow us to provide local access,” she said.
The health authority is considering recruiting emergency doctors rather than consultant surgeons and physicians to resolve out-of-hours problems. It claims such a move would reassure the public and make other services more sustainable.
But concern has been expressed that would downgrade Caithness General and make it a cottage hospital — a claim Ms Thompson described as “utter nonsense”.
“Who has claimed it and what are their credentials to make such a public claim? I am not aware of anyone asking NHS Highland for a definition. The term cottage hospital is not one we recognise. We have community hospitals (like Dunbar), rural general hospitals (like Caithness General) and district general (Raigmore),” she said.
“Emergency services would be strengthened by having a senior clinician with the advanced skill set to deal with emergencies and in particular trauma. To make this option viable the trade off would be you would not have out-of-hours — night time — surgery but this is a very exceptional requirement. Patients would still be assessed and if required transferred but in most cases it would still be local management,” added Ms Thompson.
Regarding a question about who sits on the reference sub-group — part of the body looking at the redesign of health services in Caithness — and how it was appointed, she said: “The invitation went out to a cross section of stakeholders and groups were asked to nominate. So for instance we would invite a community council to send someone along. Its an extensive invitation but it’s not a closed-shop so if anyone wanted to join they would be welcome.”
A NHS spokesman said: “NHS Highland consultants across all specialities regularly travel from their base to deliver clinical care across our area. This travel time equates to just less than 12,500 hours per annum.
“This is time that could be spent with patients if the consultants did not have to travel and is the equivalent of the total clinical care that would be delivered by 10 full-time consultants.
“The £1 million figure quoted in our initial response is the cost of 10 full-time consultants. There is always a balance to be struck with providing local access and the cost of travelling.”
