Health care in Skye and Lochalsh could be dealt a serious blow after details emerged this week of massive cuts planned at hospitals in Broadford and Portree, writes Michael Russell.

Sources on Skye say that beds will be closed and nursing staff sacked at both hospitals in an effort to save money. Dr Leo Murray, consultant physician at Broadford, would not go into specific details, but he did say that local councillors had been informed at recent meetings that “major changes” would be brought in over the course of this year because of the financial pressure NHS Highland is under.

A well-placed source said: “There are clear indications that NHS Highland are planning to close beds in Portree and Broadford hospitals. This would be disastrous and I can’t imagine the public accepting this news.

“Staff are very concerned and have been told there will be cuts in nursing staff numbers. The talk is of five or six beds closing in Portree, this less than three years after Gesto closed.

“There is no definite news regarding how to maintain medical cover after 6pm in the north end. Who will do it? Is there an answer to this dilemma? Are the staff being treated fairly? Is patient care going to be compromised?”

It is understood that staff are due to be informed of the cuts by NHS Highland tomorrow (Friday) and that jobs elsewhere in the Highlands will be offered to some.

Gill McVicar, general manager for the Mid Highland Community Health Partnership, said the cuts “do not represent service reduction” and that the challenge for NHS Highland was to provide “best value” for public resources.

She added: “The aspects being explored include efficiency and current use of available resources. Across the CHP, including Skye, we have beds that are not being used at all. We need to look at this further to ensure that our finite resource is used to best effect and, if we are staffing beds that are not needed, we will look seriously at taking them out of the system, so that we can do other things that we need to and that the patients and public want us to.

“It is on the grounds of efficiency and productivity and the public would expect the NHS to be able to demonstrate effectiveness. At present, we are exploring a number of options and reduction of under utilised beds and services is certainly one of those.”