Staffing and recruitment problems have led to the closure of the 9-bed inpatient ward at Pitlochry Community Hospital.
The ward, a GP-led inpatient unit where people come to rehabilitate before going home, was closed on Monday, January 3 and no date for reopening has been given yet by the Perth and Kinross Health and Social Care Partnership (PKHSCP).
While there are not enough staff to make this GP unit work properly, other services at Pitlochry Community Hospital are unaffected and the community hospital remains open.
Outpatient services, community care and treatment services and the integrated staffing hub, which also supports partners such as the Scottish Ambulance Service continue as normal.
Assurances have been given that those “who require a hospital admission will still be admitted to another appropriate care setting for their care”within the county.
Perthshire North MSP John Swinney thanked staff for their commitment but expressed worry: “I am concerned by the temporary closure of the inpatient ward.
“I understand the reasons why this is necessary and I will discuss with the Perth and Kinross Health and Social Care Partnership steps to restore services to what we all expect.
“The long-standing staffing challenges have been difficult to manage but staff have made an extraordinary contribution to try to sustain services throughout this period.
“The added pressure created by COVID has made the situation ever more difficult.
“It is important to stress that despite this change all other services remain available at Pitlochry Community Hospital.”
PKHSCP gave a statement: “This [temporary closure at Pitlochry] is due to long-standing staffing and recruitment difficulties to the more rural areas of Highland Perthshire, and Pitlochry Community Hospital in particular, alongside the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 response on the availability of clinical staff across the whole health and social care system.”
Perth and Kinross Health and Social Care Partnership gave more details: “Anyone in the local area who requires an inpatient stay in a community facility from January 3, 2022 will be admitted into another community hospital or care setting in Perth and Kinross.”
Gordon Paterson, chief officer for Perth and Kinross Health and Social Care Partnership said: “We need to make sure we have the clinical staff available to be able to deliver safe patient care in any of our care settings and, unfortunately, we have reached a point where we are not able to staff this one ward in Pitlochry at this time.
“Staff in the ward have been working so dedicatedly for their patients over the past few months when staffing challenges have been quite intense.
“We have looked at all the options to try to keep the inpatient ward open from redeploying staff from other local services and even acute hospitals in other areas of Tayside, to securing more agency and bank staff.
“As people can appreciate, clinical teams are stretched across all services currently and there is simply not the workforce available to us.
“We are extremely disappointed that we have had to take this step to temporarily close the nine beds, but caring for our patients safety will always be our priority.”
The temporary arrangements of the step-down of the GP unit will be kept under review by the clinical leadership team and a further update will be issued on the temporary arrangements later in January.
