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Caithness Health Action Team submission of 30 August 2021

PE1845/R: Agency to advocate for the healthcare needs of rural Scotland

Caithness has suffered many inequalities to their NHS Highland health service, such as highlighted in the Sturrock report which mainly impacts on women and their families. Their suffering because of the continued centralisation of vital health services and lack of patient centred treatment processes is not fair and is very unreasonable to the community it serves. We as a community feel disempowered and voiceless in a system that fails to listen. 

There are parallels between the way NHS Highland and NHS Dumfries & Galloway deal with rural issues. This reflects a lack of national guidance and oversight. A Rural Advocacy/mediation service would at the least, ensure consistency throughout Scotland. Principles of fairness and reasonableness would be binding on all parties.

Following a number of meetings with Galloway Community Hospital Action Group (GCHAG) to discuss these issues, Caithness Health Action Team are surprised that over 2 decades:

Travel benefits that Caithness patients gain from the Highlands schemes (which are essential for many patients) are not nationally applied.

While only 2 hours from Glasgow, Galloway cancer patients have to travel considerably more than the majority of patients from other areas in Scotland.

This unnecessary travel offers no benefits, and patients have had to suffer harms through unnecessary travel costs in addition to personal suffering which seems unfair and unreasonable. 

The public are expected to finance this management error through a local charity.

The charity trustees appear primarily members of the health board and do not appear to have perceived this as a conflict of interest.

The Sturrock report has proven disruptive and demoralising for staff and public. Mediation should be provided through a national advocacy service, as the petition proposes. Failing that, the GCHAG seems to have little alternative but to seek a review similar to the Sturrock Report which Caithness Health Action Team would fully support.