7 July 2010
Highlands and Islands Labour MSP Rhoda Grant has called for a rethink on how the region’s health services are delivered in the wake of an investigation into the work of a locum radiologist.
NHS Highland has set up a Critical Incident Team to review the radiological investigations reported by the radiologist, who worked at Raigmore Hospital in Inverness for two weeks from April 5 to 16 2010.
Discrepancies in two cases were identified by NHS Highland staff and the authority has written to 786 patients whose investigations were reported by this doctor to let them know that the image from their tests will be reviewed and re-reported.
Mrs Grant said: “I urge NHS Highland to provide all the affected patients with the information they need as soon as possible but I also think we need to review how health services are delivered in this part of the world.
“Too often we end up having to depend on locums and, as Audit Scotland has recently highlighted, they do not provide the level of service that patients expect.
“We have to look at new ways of developing health services in the Highlands and Islands that attract the right sort of people rather than relying on locums.”
