NHS Highland has been challenged over 200-mile plus round trips it has authorised to deliver medicine to patients’ homes.
Concern over the practice has surfaced as it emerged the health authority’s taxi tab last year totalled £422,808.
It has defended the expense, claiming the pandemic led to a rise in the number of trips needed to deliver urgently needed medicines to Covid sufferers.
The NHS Highland taxi bill issue was raised by Caithness Health Action Team (Chat). They say they have learned of taxis being regularly despatched to take drugs from Raigmore Hospital in Inverness to addresses in Caithness.
Chat secretary Maria Aitken said yesterday: “We have been told that it has been quite common for taxis to come north with tablets and other common medicines from Raigmore.
“They seem to have been used particularly at nights and weekends.
“We wanted to know why they couldn’t use a community pharmacy or open up the pharmacy at Caithness General.
Waste of money
“It does seem to represent a waste of taxpayers’ money.”
Chat received the total NHS Highland spent on taxis in 2021 via a Freedom of Information request.
It has however not been able to establish the amount spent on the runs from Raigmore to patients’ houses.
Mrs Aitken said: “It’s not just the money – it’s also the additional environmental impact of these taxis running around the Highlands with little bottles of medicine.
“We could fully understand if this was for emergencies but that doesn’t seem to have routinely been the case.”
Chat was told of one delivery which was made to a house in the far north while the patient was still in Raigmore.
Mrs Aitken said: “I see NHS vans coming up and down on the A9 every day – why can’t they use them for the transports?”
She was shocked to learn of the health authority’s outlay on taxis last year.
“It seems a colossal amount,” she said of the £422,808 total for 2021.
A breakdown of the NHS Highland taxi bill reveals £327,209 is assigned to Raigmore Hospital. The next biggest share, £23,216, is attributed to what they describe as Caithness Hospital.
Unusual move
A NHS spokesman said: “It is unusual for NHS Highland to use taxis to transport medicines.
“However, there are occasionally urgent situations or service continuity pressures which necessitate us looking at how we get medications to patients in a timely manner.”
The spokesman said the taxis are used in out-of-hours emergencies which can require specialist medicines not available from community pharmacies.
The pandemic had also led to medicines being despatched for home-bound Covid sufferers at high risk of complications.
Said the spokesman: “The Covid-19 treatments are very new medicines that are used for a small group of patients. They are currently not available through community pharmacy as standard.”
He added that it is currently working to make these medicines available from outlets in Caithness.
NHS Highland has meanwhile announced that it has just recruited two permanent pharmacists. They will start in Caithness General Hospital next month.
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