Medical & Health Services News
Following a detailed review of the role of the Rural General Hospital Manager at Caithness General Hospital (CGH), Wick, NHS Highland are pleased to advertise this exciting senior leadership role. This is a key operational management and leadership role in the Acute Division within NHS Highland.
Ann-Marie Cassidy who lives in Halkirk is a qualified RTT therapist and offers sessions face to face and online. She said, "I am a Rapid Transformational Therapy Practitioner, which is a form of regression hypnotherapy that takes you back to scenes in the past where you have formed certain ideas about yourself that have led to concerns such as depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, phobias, addictions, eating disorders, even infertility and so much more.
A funding boost of nearly £1million of revenue investment is set to benefit rural areas across Highland. The Highland Strategic Local Action Group who met during September, considered, and agreed funding for revenue projects submitted to the first round of the 2023/24 Community Regeneration Fund.
Following the successful merger of GP Practices in Riverbank (Thurso) and Lybster in 2021, NHS Highland is now supporting Riverview Practice (Wick) to integrate into this unified primary healthcare team. This will bring benefit to both patients and staff thanks to closer working relationships between the practice teams.
Two GP practices in Caithness will merge this month bringing benefit to both patients and staff thanks to closer working relationships between the teams. Riverbank Practice in Thurso and the Lybster Practice, based within Lybster village, have always worked closely together but the merger will now bring a formal arrangement into place.
To mark Scottish Apprenticeship Week (01-05 March 2021) NHS Highland is highlighting the positive impact that being an apprentice can have on the individual and also bring to an organisation. Catriona Naughton, Senior Practice Manager at Riverbank Medical Practice in Thurso knows how important it is to invest in the professional development of her team and includes offering employment opportunities to the young people of Caithness.
Caithness General Hospital in Wick is the first hospital in the world to gain the prestigious Alliance of Water Stewardship standard. Pioneering work in Wick has enabled the town's main hospital to be awarded international status for work undertaken to reduce the impact of pharmaceuticals on the environment.
NHS Highland plans to open up hospital visiting times so that patients can benefit from more flexible arrangements at the end of this month (July 2019). Rather than having visiting hours at set times, the board's Welcome / Failte Initiative will see patients being able to ask friends, relatives and carers to visit at times that better suit everyone involved.
For the first time in Highland GPs working in the area now have access to mentor support to help promote staff health and wellbeing. NHS Highland's Mentoring Scheme, which saw the first trained mentors graduate in 2016, was recently extended to include GPs as trained mentors and a group of 10 mentors were successful in graduating last month (February).
The University of the Highlands and Islands has welcomed its first cohort of students onto an innovative new midwifery course. Nineteen students gathered at the Centre for Health Science in Inverness on Monday 7 January 2019 to begin the shortened midwifery programme.
The Highland Council is advising low income households, including home-owners, to apply for help to reduce their Council Tax. Eligible households can receive up to 100% reduction from their Council Tax which means that those households who receive the full reduction will only have to pay their Scottish Water and Wastewater charges.
NHS Highland has created a handy list of telephone numbers to help improve access to healthcare services in Caithness - including a single point of contact number for community health and social care. The information is given on a laminated double-sided A4 flyer with timely advice about the health board's services and the relevant telephone numbers for these and associated services.
NHS Highland has agreed that the Caithness General Hospital will be heated by energy delivered by the wood fuelled district heating scheme in Wick. Supply of low cost renewable energy will begin immediately.
Voters in the three Highland constituencies for the UK Parliamentary General Election of: Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross; Ross, Skye and Lochaber; and Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey are being reminded by Returning Officer Steve Barron that their vote matters. Tomorrow (Thursday 7 May) voting begins with 283 polling stations opening their doors at 7am and remaining open for voters until 10pm.
A ward at Caithness General Hospital has been closed to new admissions and visitors are being asked to stay away while staff deal with several cases of diarrhoea and vomiting. Bignold Wing currently has seven patients affected and samples have shown that norovirus is present in the ward.
Statement From NHS Education Scotland (NES) NES quality management visit, Caithness General Hospital. NHS Education Scotland (NES) is accountable to the General Medical Council (GMC) for assessing whether doctors in training are in an appropriate training environment. We carried out a quality management visit to Caithness General Hospital on Friday 13rd February to assess the quality of the learning experience and learning environment for postgraduate medical trainees in line with General Medical Council Standards. The visit was prompted by a shortage of substantive consultants in post and continued heavy reliance on locums and therefore the potential impact on the quality of training and supervision of doctors in training.
Don't lose your vote poster With the European Parliamentary Elections taking place on Thursday 22 May, Bill Gillies, Electoral Registration Officer for the Highland and Western Isles area is urging voters to make sure they are registered to vote in time. “People are talking about the elections, but you’ll only be able to have your say on who represents you in the European Parliament if you’re registered to vote by the deadline of Tuesday 6 May and for postal applications by 7 May”, said Mr Gillies.
Users of the A9 will welcome the news that a preferred option has been chosen for the challenging hairpin bend at Berriedale Braes on the northernmost part of Scotland’s longest trunk road. A public exhibition is being held today at Berriedale (2nd April 2014) to give people the opportunity to view the proposals and provide their comments.
From April, Riverbank Medical Practice in Thurso will become a salaried practice run by NHS Highland. The practice, which has a patient list of 6000, has been managed by NHS Highland since December 2012 but advertising for an individual or group to take over the practice was not successful so the Board will now take on responsibility for the practice on a permanent basis.
The Riverbank Practice Patient Participation Group (RPPPG) is undertaking a survey to obtain patients� views on the current provision of services at the Practice. The survey will take place between Monday 21st October 2013, through to Friday 15th November 2013, inclusive.