FRIDAY, 31 DECEMBER, 2021

Temporary closure of Pitlochry Community Hospital Inpatient Unit

The Perth and Kinross Health and Social Care Partnership has had to make a decision to temporarily close the GP inpatient ward at Pitlochry Community Hospital from early January 2022.

This 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.

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 & Kinross.

This decision only affects the nine inpatient beds at the GP Unit. All other services at Pitlochry Community Hospital will remain open. That includes outpatient services, community care and treatment services and the integrated staffing hub, which also supports partners such as the Scottish Ambulance Service.

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 safely will always be our priority.

“It is important, however, that local people know that if they need to have an inpatient stay in a community setting, they will be admitted to another appropriate facility for their care in Perth & Kinross.”

Key messages:

· One ward at Pitlochry Community Hospital will close from January 3, 2022

· This is the nine-bed GP inpatient unit which provides ongoing care and rehabilitation

· All other services at Pitlochry Community Hospital are unaffected and the hospital remains open

· People who require a hospital admission will still be admitted to another appropriate care setting for their care

· Staff from the inpatient unit which has been stepped down at this time will be redeployed to other hospitals and services in Perth & Kinross

· Perth and Kinross HSCP will continue to run the ongoing recruitment campaign for clinical staff in the area

· The temporary arrangements of the step-down of the GP Unit will be kept under review by the clinical leadership team

· A further update will be issued on the temporary arrangements later in January 2022

· Perth and Kinross HSCP continues to look at how services can be delivered in the local area more sustainably in the future

Contact:

NHS Tayside Communications

(01382) 424138

communications.tayside@nhs.net