NHS Highland’s annual review will take place in Caithness later this year.
It will be held in Wick by the Scottish Government’s cabinet secretary for Health and Wellbeing, Shona Robison, on Monday, September 7.
The event provides an opportunity to scrutinise the health board’s performance throughout the past year and highlight what has been done well, as well as what could be done better.
Caithness has been chosen as this year’s venue to ensure these events are spread evenly throughout the region and to recognise the challenges to delivering services in remote areas.
NHS Highland chairman Garry Coutts said: “We are delighted that the cabinet secretary has agreed to our suggestion to hold the annual review in Caithness and look forward to welcoming her to the event.
“Delivering health and social care in remote and rural areas such as Caithness comes with certain challenges, not least with the recruitment and retention of clinicians. These challenges have been particularly acute in Caithness General Hospital and have resulted in NHS Highland reconsidering how it delivers consultant-led services, including out-of-hours surgical services.
“Our actions relating to this have provoked some controversy locally, and we believe that holding the annual review in Caithness will give us the opportunity to shed further light on our thinking with regard to the hospital and our ongoing review of adult services, and to offer reassurance to local residents.
“It will also allow us to show the cabinet secretary some of the many examples of good care we deliver in the area.”
Members of the public are being asked to attend the event and submit written questions to be answered on the day.
The venue for the annual review has yet to be confirmed, as have details of how members of the public can view the event by video-conferencing. The event will be filmed on a live webcast.