The reassurances were made in response to the Save Portree Hospital campaign on the social networking site, Facebook, which organisers say has been set up to “prevent further downgrading of the hospital and acute medical services on North Skye”.
But Mid Highland Community Health Partnership (CHP) General Manager, Gill McVicar, stressed that there were no plans to close or downgrade Portree Hospital.
She added that the CHP was looking at improving services on the site, which would act as a resource hub for community services in line with the Community Hospitals Strategy.
Mrs McVicar said: “We have two excellent facilities with highly skilled and dedicated staff in both. We are working hard to make sure they complement each other and provide a range of services for the people of Skye, Lochalsh and Wester Ross.
“We are also looking to plug the gaps in services on Skye by developing, for example, rehabilitation and reablement services on the Portree site, which we hope will become a centre of excellence in this vital area of care.”
Portree Community Hospital has 12 inpatient beds, with dedicated rehabilitation beds providing services to the whole area. It has a community casualty facility providing minor injury and Out of Hours care from 9am to 11pm every day of the week. It also offers a number of treatment rooms for outpatients with visiting consultants and specialists from Raigmore Hospital.
Dr MacKinnon Memorial Hospital at Broadford has 23 beds and an operating theatre, which provides a visiting surgical and diagnostic service. It also offers a 24-hour accident and emergency service and provides the acute medical care for the locality through doctors who have had significant additional training and updating.
Both hospitals offer a varied range of services.
Mrs McVicar said: “I acknowledge that the fabric and layout of both hospitals are not ideal, but we have invested significantly in Portree, with further investment in radiology equipment expected soon. We have also recently improved the environment in Broadford.
“I am aware that there is a hope for a new hospital or hospitals in Skye, but we need to be realistic. In the current economic climate, it will be many years before we are in a position to replace either of the hospitals.
“In the meantime, our plan is to retain them both and ensure that we make them as effective and efficient as possible in the circumstances. Neither hospital could take on the full role of the two facilities at the moment, due to space, layout and facilities, so we will be keeping them both, but they need to work together. They each have unique characteristics and provide an excellent and much envied service to the local population.
“We are very fortunate to have these resources in Skye, and I hope that, having reassured the campaign group that neither is threatened, they will work with us to support service improvements for the whole locality and for all who need care both in the community and the hospitals.”
The Health Services Workshop at the Dunollie Hotel in Broadford is being held to explore options for the improvement and, in some cases, redesign of health services in Skye and Lochalsh to make the best use of the available resources and provide the best possible services, to as many people as possible, as close to their homes as possible.
Those invited to take part include representatives of all community councils, Highland Councillors, MPs and MSPs, locality and clinical staff, managers and representatives of partner organisations.
They will consider the findings of a public engagement exercise organised to gather local views on the future configuration of health services in the area.
Mrs McVicar said: “I am delighted that we had such a good response and am looking forward to hearing the detailed feedback from the engagement exercise.
“Those at the workshop will have as much information as they require to aid discussion on priorities for service improvement and agreeing next steps. The delegate list represents a wide range of experience, expertise, interest and perspectives and I am sure that there will be interesting debate.
“The workshop will not be discussing closure of either hospital as this is not being considered.”
