Controversial changes to Portree Hospital in Skye could face an independent probe after MSPs agreed to look into the issue.
Campaigners took their fight to Holyrood yesterday amid fears that a dependence on Broadford Hospital, 24 miles away, was “ill thought-out” and would cost lives.
NHS Highland has planned to scrap accident and emergency services at Portree Hospital, sparking a furious response from local residents.
The group “SOS NHS Skye” delivered a petition, signed by more than 3,500 people, to Holyrood to urge MSPs to call for an independent investigation of the matter.
Group member Malcolm Henry said: “Almost everyone in north Skye lives more than 30 minutes by car from Broadford and a quarter of these are more than an hour away.
“These travel times assume immediate access to a car with no adverse weather and no tourist traffic – those are the best times you can make it.
“Centralising services in Broadford will mean the majority of the population will find it much harder to use them. It will be much more difficult and the certainty of getting services out of hours will disappear.”
Members stopped short of taking the issue to an independent scrutiny panel, demanding instead that NHS Highland and the Scottish Health Council explain the decision.
Convener of the public petitions committee, Michael McMahon MSP said: “We will be asking questions of NHS Highland regarding its decision-making process, and of the Scottish Health Council on its scrutiny of that process.
“Crucially, we will ask the cabinet secretary whether an independent scrutiny panel could be a positive way forward and if she is willing to review her decision.”
But Skye SNP councillor Ian Renwick said he was not unduly concerned by the proposed shake-up in local health services, and said it was more about what services would be available in Portree.
A spokesman for NHS Highland said: “We are satisfied that the process was as it should have been, and therefore that the decision is the most appropriate one for all the people of Skye, Lochalsh and South West Ross.”
A Scottish Government spokesman said: “The Scottish Government will respond in full to any query made by the public petitions committee. Locating the new hospital in Broadford was subject to wide ranging scrutiny, with considerable input from the people of Skye, during the consultation process.”