National Treatment Centre Highland in Inverness receives extra £2.6m from Scottish Government to deliver thousands more operations
Thousands more operations will be carried out at the National Treatment Centre (NTC) Highland thanks to extra funding of £2.6 million.
The £48 million specialist treatment facility, located at Inverness Campus, opened two years ago this month to deliver NHS Highland’s entire eye care service plus a range of elective orthopaedic care such as hip and knee replacements.
The additional funding was announced today by Scotland’s Health Secretary Neil Gray as he made a whistle-stop tour of the facility.
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The centre, which was created to help reduce waiting times, treats patients in NHS Highland, NHS Grampian, NHS Tayside and NHS Shetland areas.
The additional money is expected to allow the centre to carry out about 8418 procedures, including operations for cataracts and joint replacements, in the coming year – a 67 per cent increase on the 5054 commissioned by the Scottish Government last year.
It will support the recruitment of new nurses, anaesthetists and healthcare support workers.
It has been allocated from £200 million contained in the government’s budget to tackle waiting times, delayed discharge and improve hospital flow across the country.
Mr Gray said in the two years since it opened, NTC Highland had provided life-changing treatment to thousands of people living in the north of Scotland.
“We know in the past too many people have waited too long for treatment, and the First Minister and I have set out a plan to change that,” he said.
“We will deliver more than 150,000 extra appointments nationally and procedures in the coming year to ensure people receive the care they need as quickly as possible – targeting the longest waiting patients and optimising the use of our National Treatment Centres to substantially increase capacity.”
Colin McNair, clinical director of NTC Highland, welcomed the additional funding.
“It’s fantastic for patients in terms of being able to access this facility,” he said.
“We always knew we had a great facility from a design focus.
“We are glad to see this has been realised since it opened.”
He said patients, who travelled from as far as Grampian, Tayside and Shetland, were overwhelmingly positive about the centre.
He explained that the number of procedures had more than doubled from the first year of operation to the financial year just ended - cataract operations, for example, went from 2472 to 6200 while the number of hip and knee operations went from 1304 to 1609.
“Part of that was deliberate as we wanted to ensure it was safe for patients,” Mr McNair said.
“We now hope to press the accelerator.”
Highlands and Islands MSP Emma Roddick who joined the minister on his tour said: “Most people write to their MSP to complain.
“But I have heard so many good things through my inbox about the NTC, about the environment and staff - and the cheese scones in the cafe!
“One lady said she didn’t mind getting her eye injections so long as there was a cheese scone waiting at the end of it.”
