Thousands more patients from the north and north-east should receive procedures like cataracts and joint replacements after an extra £2.6 million was allocated to the National Treatment Centre in Inverness.
The additional funding was announced by SNP Health Secretary Neil Gray during a visit to the facility on Thursday.
Officials expect the fund to allow the Highland centre to carry out around 8,418 procedures in the coming year – a 67% increase on the 5,054 commissioned by the Scottish Government last year.
The government say the increase in capacity will deliver additional procedures for patients in Highland, Grampian, Tayside and Shetland.
‘Thousands’ of additional procedures
Health Secretary Neil Gray said the National Treatment Centre Highland has provided “life-changing treatment” to patients across the north of Scotland since opening two years ago.
He said: “This new funding of £2.6m will help the state-of-the-art facility to deliver thousands of additional procedures every year – including operations for cataracts and joint replacements.
“We know in the past too many people have waited too long for treatment, and the first minister and I have set out a plan to change that.”
The national treatment centre network is being created to help reduce waiting times by delivering at least 40,000 additional elective surgeries by 2026.
But only four of the 10 planned NTCs – including Inverness – are up and running so far, with a commitment for just one more.
We revealed last year how the centre in Aberdeen was one of the five put on hold as a result of budget pressures.
A decision on future of the paused construction projects is not expected until next year.
National Treatment Centres
First Minister John Swinney promised earlier this year that the health service would carry out an extra 150,000 appointments and procedures in the coming year.
This would include 10,000 through “smarter working” at the existing national treatment centres and thousands more procedures at hospitals.
In its first year, the Highland treatment centre saw more than 28,500 patients through the front door.
This involved 1,722 orthopaedic operations, ranging from hip and knee replacement surgery to hand, foot and ankle procedures.
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