Hansard

I am thankful for the opportunity to take part in this debate and I thank Jamie Stone for bringing it before Parliament.

Much of what Jamie Stone has told members applies to my constituency, which has the same sort of terrain and ambulance provision. It is generally accepted that ambulance crews are a vital front-line service. Like those in the fire service, for whom support has been expressed recently, ambulance crews do a difficult and sometimes dangerous job. I suggest that the current on-call working regime for ambulance crews should be reviewed because, as Jamie told us, the crews can be on duty for up to 20 hours, they receive little recompense and they are required frequently to make long journeys at the end of their shifts.

The ambulance service is an excellent front-line service. Its staff are trained to a very high standard and they do an excellent job, but they cannot be everywhere all the time. When an ambulance team has to respond to a call-out, that creates a problem for the neighbouring depot. If a unit is taken away from one depot, it must be replaced in case there is an emergency. If there is much demand on the ambulance service in such areas, the situation spirals out of control very easily.

After years of consultation and debate in the medical profession and the ambulance service, the provision that the local hospital in my area—the MacKinnon memorial hospital on Skye—is able to give the public has been reduced. There is little surgical provision there. I heard recently that a study costing about £100,000 had been commissioned to examine the surgical provision up and down the west coast. That study has come up with the brilliant idea that the Belford hospital in Fort William should not provide surgical services and that such provision should move to Oban's Lorne and Islands District general hospital in Argyllshire. It is understandable that that proposal does not please many people in the Fort William and Lochaber area. It is particularly unsatisfactory for my constituents, because the Belford hospital attends to their surgical provision.

An argument has developed about where that surgical provision should be provided in future. Staff at the Belford hospital suggest that all such work should be done in Fort William, rather than in Oban. The hospital in Oban has put forward arguments for doing the work there. Whatever happens, surgical provision will be diminished. That will require more ambulances and more travel.

The distance between the MacKinnon memorial hospital and the Belford in Fort William is about 100 miles, whereas the distance from the MacKinnon memorial hospital to Oban is about 140 miles. Driving conditions are not always good because the roads are very twisting and tortuous. That is not good for the ambulance or, more important, the patient. We should remember that the patients as well as the ambulance crews have to travel on those roads.

There is a helicopter service, but it is not always available—for example, it will be away on call in an emergency. In addition, the helicopter does not always fly at night or in adverse weather conditions. A pregnant mother who was being airlifted from a remote area of Skye to Raigmore in Inverness decided that she was going to produce her child in the middle of the flight. Because there was no room in the helicopter's cabin to attend to the lady, the helicopter had to land on one of the highest mountains in Ross-shire and the poor mother had to deliver the child at the top of a mountainous peak in Wester Ross. That is the sort of situation that arises.

We must give the issue careful and serious consideration and we must ensure that we can provide an ambulance service that has, at all times, an active and alert crew. Such provision is necessary not only for the benefit of the crew, but for the benefit of the patients to whom they attend.