Health Services

"To quote Sir Lewis Ritchie, “When we came in December (2018) it was dark and dreich inside and out. I am delighted to say that coming back in May (2019) there is sunshine and brightness inside and out and this is very encouraging.” Sir Lewis and his team were very impressed with progress made over the past six months, especially in Out of Hours Urgent Care and in re-instating community beds. He paid tribute to the hard work of the community and key staff in NHS Highland and the other agencies - Scottish Ambulance Service and NHS 24 - for being so committed to delivering these key recommendations. While it is clear that the work is not done, by any means, he and his team believe that the commitment and co-production achieved here could be a blue-print for other areas across Scotland." Catriona Macdonald, Workstream Lead, Portree

In July 2018 a steering group was formed to implement the Sir Lewis Ritchie report into Out-of-Hours (OOH) care in Skye, Lochalsh and South West Ross. The group consists of community representatives, local practitioners, staff from NHS Highland, NHS24 and the emergency services. The Scottish Ambulance Service is also working with the project and is a key player. This process was established to ensure that the local community has an opportunity to take an active role in the design of local health and social care services.

In September 2018, in response to the rapidly increasing workload faced by community representatives, Portree and Braes Community Trust formed a Health Services Subgroup. Together with community representatives they developed a proposal for a part time Project Officer to provide administrative and communications support to the community. Members of the group submitted an application to Struan Community Trust, Edinbane Community Company and Dunvegan Community Trust for funding to support this post and were delighted that trusts unanimously agreed to support the request.

The main objective of the role is to ensure that north Skye communities are kept up to date on the progress of the project and to support community representatives to liaise with relevant individuals, groups and agencies, re. service improvements. Since funding has been approved PBCT have gone on to appoint a Project Support Officer who started in February 2019. The Trust are incredibly grateful to Edinbane Community Company, Dunvegan Trust and Struan Community Trust for getting behind this project. The need for the project to be delivered successfully is widely acknowledged and all four trusts were keen to invest in the community members who can make that happen.

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Image: Sophie Issacson, Project Officer.

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