Labour’s Inverness and Nairn candidate and lead candidate for the Highlands and Islands Region, Rhoda Grant, has promised to carry on the work undertaken by her retiring colleague, David Stewart, to improve services for chronic pain sufferers in the Highlands if she is re-elected this week.
David Stewart has been pressing the Scottish Government to invest more in the service in the North and to tackle the shortage of chronic pain consultants nationally.
Mr Stewart said, “Having been contacted by constituents, I asked many questions relating to the funding of the service in the North and the shortage of consultants in general.
“Living with chronic pain affects every aspect of a sufferer’s life and many have to give up work as a result.”
Inverness resident, Colin Sutherland, who has suffered chronic pain for around 10 years and has himself been pushing for more staff for the service said “I am really pleased Rhoda will take up the case if she’s re-elected and I wish her every success in getting something done.”
The Scottish Government’s Programme for Government 2020/21 committed to developing and improving the current Scottish model for chronic pain.
“Before the outbreak of Covid last March, waiting times for the service in the North were excessive and that will only have been exacerbated further by the outbreak.” continued Mr Stewart.
Rhoda Grant said “In December last year, NHS Scotland’s update on national developments on chronic pain highlighted key challenges around workforce planning and education, but crucially the lack of consistent and sustainable funding for the service was also cited as one of the biggest challenges.
“We need to do more to highlight the issue and to get sufficient amounts of staff and funding in place to tackle the problem. I will continue to press for this if re-elected.” concluded Mrs Grant.