Golspie ambulance station set to be manned 24/7
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There has been a big boost for health care in parts of Sutherland with the news that Golspie ambulance station is to be manned around the clock.
It follows the recruitment of three more staff – but it also comes after local concern over the time taken to answer call outs.
The station decision was hailed "great news" by Golspie Community Council secretary Henrietta Marriott, herself an advanced nurse practitioner and one of three basic responders based at Golspie, Dornoch and Brora.
Sutherland Ambulance Service's area service manager Graham Cormack attended a Zoom meeting of Rogart Community Council on Tuesday night when he delivered the welcome announcement.
He said: "We have just received initial funding for Golspie ambulance station that is allowing us to move away from an on-call system to the station being crewed 24/7.
"We are recruiting three additional staff to Golspie and that should give us a greater resilience in the area. We have a further development in Lairg where we have one of the staff there doing the advanced paramedic course.
"I am not sure where she will be based once she has completed that course, whether in the Sutherland area or closer to Tain or Invergordon. That is still at the planning stage.
"The plan is that more people will be treated at home rather than be taken to hospital. They (advanced paramedics) have prescribing rights to 50 drugs so more people can be treated at home. That is the main target."
Mr Cormack was asked to attend the community council meeting because of concerns over the length of time it was taking ambulances to respond to calls in the area.
Chairman Frank Roach said at the outset: "Our former chairman (Alasdair Waddell) died back in September and it took rather a long time for the ambulance to get to him.
"There has been another similar incident within the last couple of months where it was unclear where the ambulance was supposed to go.
"We got in touch with you to find out how the system works currently and how we can improve the situation for the community."
Mr Cormack responded: "When someone makes a 999 call, it is picked up by one of three emergency call centres in Scotland, usually by Inverness but the call centres we have are virtual and all interlinked.
"If Inverness is busy then it may be transferred and a call taker in Glasgow or Edinburgh might pick it up. That is common throughout Britain. Inverness could be answering calls from London as well.
"The issue you identify with vehicles not finding the correct location may have eased slightly over the last few weeks with new software installed in call centres. Mobile phones gave a general area that could be up to half a mile wide. Hopefully the new software will ease that issue and we should be able to plot a more accurate location."
Mr Cormack also recommended residents download an app for mobile phones called What Three Words.
He said: "The whole world is broken into grids two to three metres square and every one of these boxes has a reference which is three different words. If you are at a location and press a button on this app this will generate these three words which will take us direct to that location. No ambiguity."
Mr Roach said: "That is very positive that Golspie is going to go 24/7."
Mrs Marriott agreed: "I think it's excellent news. The ambulance service has a massive area to cover. A 24/7 crewed station in Golspie can only benefit everybody. I think it will certainly make a difference."
She added that it was also "great news" to have an extra trained advanced paramedic in the area.
"That will be a huge benefit," said Mrs Marriott.
