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Community council concern over continuing closure of minor injuries unit at Golspie


By Caroline McMorran

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East Sutherland's Minor Injuries Unit has been closed since the start of the pandemic despite similar units across the region reopening within months, it has emerged.

The unit, located at the Lawson Memorial Hospital complex in Golspie, has been shut since March 2020.

A minor injuries service is being provided by individual GP practices but Golspie Community Council secretary Henrietta Marriott said the public was largely unaware of it.

She claimed that even ambulance crews were in the dark and were taking minor injuries patients to Inverness for treatment.

Mrs Marriott, an advanced nurse practitioner and BASICS responder, is accusing NHS Highland of a "dire" lack of communication and an inefficient use of resources.

Golspie Community Council secretary Henrietta Marriott is an advanced nurse practitioner and BASICS responder.
Golspie Community Council secretary Henrietta Marriott is an advanced nurse practitioner and BASICS responder.

NHS Highland north area manager Kate Kenmure was due to attend a virtual community council meeting on Monday evening to explain the situation but pulled out because of another commitment.

The unit’s closure has come to public attention as pressure continues to build on NHS Highland over the long-standing closure of the Strathy Ward at Migdale Hospital, Bonar Bridge, with a promised consultation exercise over its future yet to materialise.

Formerly housed in the old outpatients department of the Lawson Memorial Hospital, the Minor Injuries Unit was relocated some years ago to a room in the foyer of the nearby Cambusavie Unit.

The Cambusavie Unit where the Minor Injuries Unit was house in a room off the foyer.
The Cambusavie Unit where the Minor Injuries Unit was house in a room off the foyer.

NHS Highland paid a local GP collaborative to operate the facility - unlike other minor injury units in the region which are run by the health authority.

Family doctors from the Dornoch, Golspie and Brora practices - who are also contracted to provide medical cover for the Cambusavie Unit - at the same time staffed the minor injuries unit on rotation.

Pre-Covid, local residents could simply drop in and receive treatment for injuries such as dog bites, cuts, bruises, burns and foreign bodies in the eye. X-rays could be taken.

However when the pandemic struck the unit was shut because of infection control and also to enable staff to be redeployed.

Mrs Marriott said: “After about eight months all the minor injury units controlled by the health board directly were reopened, although not as drop-in centres. Patients have to phone NHS 24 and are directed to the nearest unit.

“The Golspie Minor Injuries Unit did not reopen. If you speak to local GPs, they will say, yes, they are providing this service to their patients. But this has not been publicised. The general public do not know that and neither has it been communicated to neighbouring minor injury units.

The sign for the Minor Injuries Unit has been taped over.
The sign for the Minor Injuries Unit has been taped over.

“Nobody I have spoken to in the village knows they are meant to go to the GP surgery and neither does the ambulance crew. I know of at least one incident, and I suspect there are more, of a patient taken to Inverness who could easily have been seen locally."

Mrs Marriott said that visitors to the area unfortunate enough to sustain a minor injury are usually directed to the unit at Invergordon. She said there was now no minor injuries unit between Invergordon and Wick.

She queried whether GPs were still being paid the same amount as previously for seeing fewer minor injuries patients.

Mrs Marriott said her attempts to find out what was happening with the minor injuries unit were also mired in confusion with one health official saying it was to be moved back into the Lawson Memorial Hospital but another that it would remain in the Cambusavie Unit but in a new waiting area.

“It is a real muddle”, she said.

At Monday’s meeting chairman Ian Sutherland said: “The question is are they going to reopen it? Yes or no?

Cllr Richard Gale responded: “There is a commitment to the minor injuries unit. There is no question that it is not going to reopen. But the small area in the Cambusavie Unit is not a suitable space for it.”

NHS Highland has been asked to respond.


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