In May 2019, the then Cabinet Secretary visited the Isle of Skye, with Sir Lewis Ritchie to undertake a review of progress. Then in May 2022, the current Cabinet Secretary visited the Isle of Skye, for the official opening of the Broadford Hospital. No formal discussions took place at that time, regarding the independent external review of Skye, Lochalsh and South West Ross.

The Scottish Government is aware that Sir Lewis Ritchie intends to undertake further visits to Skye, Lochlash and South West Ross, within the coming 6 months, to engage with clinical colleagues, members of the local community and NHS Highland officials This will likely include virtual meetings as well as in person visits.

The Scottish Government is aware that there is still some substantial work to do to fully implement the recommendations of the review and would continue to encourage NHS Highland and the local communities to work together to achieve this.

The Scottish Government remains engaged with the review process, however, the responsibility for the implementation of the recommendations falls to NHS Highland, working closely with the local community, NHS 24, the Scottish Ambulance Service and other agencies as recommended in Professor Ritchie’s original review.

Further meetings with Professor Sir Lewis Ritchie, NHS Highland, elected members of Skye, Lochalsh and South West Ross and the wider public community have built on the recommendations in the original (2018) report. Professor Sir Lewis Ritchie issued his written view of assessment of progress, with further recommendations and qualifications to the respective local Chairs of Implementation of the SLSWR OOH Review Report and NHS Highland Board, following in-person visits to Skye in December 2018 and May 2019 and a virtual assessment of progress in October 2020, during the height of the Covid-19 Pandemic.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-15536. on‎ 17 March 2023. Any update of progress of this independent review would require to come from NHS Highland as the responsible agency for implementation.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

The Scottish Government is aware that, following the publication of the independent external review, 4 of the recommendations have been delivered in full. These include resolving local provision of urgent care in Glenelg & Arnisdale and Raasay, in-patient hospital provision, workforce capacity and capability for the Scottish Ambulance Service and a Centre of Excellence for learning, education and training has been established.

The information that has been requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government.

Ministers and Scottish Government officials regularly meet with representatives of all Health Boards, including NHS Highland, NHS Orkney and NHS Shetland, to discuss matters of importance to local people.

A set of data tables for the most recent and historical hospital bed numbers is available in the annual PHS publication, which was released on 27 September 2022. The publications can be found at: https://publichealthscotland.scot/publications/acute-hospital-activity-and-nhs-beds-information-annual/acute-hospital-activity-and-nhs-beds-information-annual-annual-year-ending-31-march-2022/

Data is available from financial year 2012-13 to financial year 2021-22. Data is not available as far back as 1999. Data is not yet available for financial year 2022-23.

Hospital beds data is presented in Table 4 – beds data file, and the measure of interest is Average Available Staffed Beds, the indicator is Location of Interest, and you will need to Sub-Filter for All Specialties. The data for Portree Hospital will be listed under NHS Highland. The following table is an excerpt from the dataset which includes the Average Available Staffed Beds for All Locations of Treatment, NHS Highland, and Portree Hospital.