Save our Surgeries Burghead Hopeman

05/01/2026

Following the response from NHS Grampian on our Nurse-Led pilot project proposal, today we sent a request to share the detailed review and clinical scrutiny of the proposal, which had raised concerns on various issues. Sharing of such analysis will enhance understanding of the challenges facing HSCM in delivering better services and hopefully help shape up future intervention.

Furthermore, statement was also made about limited evidence of unmet needs in our area, despite challenges we raised on long waiting time for appointment, higher utilisation of A&E and delayed discharge. Closure of our surgeries had created distortion in health equity for our communities thus has always been our entry point in discussion with HSCM. Any evidence showing otherwise would be welcome.

We have invited NHSG and HSCM to come and meet members of our communities to hear their first-hand experience.

We would welcome positive change in community engagement to solve issues that matter to our communities.

04/01/2026

❄️ If you take a tumble on snow or ice:

• Move slowly and check for pain
• You might feel stiff or sore later — that’s normal.
• If it hurts to put weight on it, rest it
• Use ice (wrapped in a towel) for 10–20 minutes at a time
• Take over-the-counter pain relief if needed
• Gentle movement as it starts to feel better

More help here 👉 www.nhs24.info/MSK

Not sure if you need A&E? Visit www.nhsinform.scot/right-care or call 111.

04/01/2026

01/01/2026

Happy New Year to you all🙏

A little look back to 2025 while we pick up way forward for 2026.

At the start of 2025, following our extensive appeal for the Scottish Government to consider innovative intervention to improve access to primary health care services for our communities, we received a letter from Cab Sec, Neil Gray, through Douglas Ross MSP, expressing commitment to consider funding for a nurse-led pilot project. He then requested that SOS works with HSCM who are to lead the development of proposal for such project.

We also received a letter from Minister for Public and Women's Health, Jenni Minto, through Richard Lochhead MSP, reiterating the commitment and asking for possibility to merge proposal from HSCM/GSA with the concept of nurse-led pilot by SOS.

In May, we found out that HSCM had submitted a proposal to the Scottish Government. This proposal was then withdrawn when question on non inclusion of SOS was brought up. The withdrawn proposal was then shared with SOS for our inputs.
Upon digesting the proposal, SOS expressed its concern re the purpose of the proposal which was a research proposal, rather than service delivery as campaigned for and backed by Scottish Government.

Sadly, later on we found out that a proposal had been submitted by HSCM for the 2nd time to the Scottish Government, despite the reservation by SOS and the fact that HSCM was requested to work with SOS in the first place.

We then decided to elaborate the concept of nurse-led pilot project into a detailed project proposal, acknowledging the many gaps in info required from HSCM to fully support the I.plementation plan of such proposal. We submitted this proposal in October.

In November, we received a response from Directorate of Primary Health Care at Scottish Government to reiterate the fact that health service deliveries are the responsibilities of HSCM and as such it can not take forward our proposal without the support of HSCM.

Later on, we received communication from Minister of Public and Women's Health through Richard Lochhead MSP, to acknowledge reception of 2 proposals and that her officials should be able to appraise the proposals and feedback should be expected in January.

In December, we received response from NHSG to state that HSCM had carried out detailed review of our proposal and there are concerns around governance and supervision issues around our proposal for nurse-led pilot project. They went further to say that there is limited evidence of unmet needs in our area.

A few points from this brief:
1. Health Social Care Moray is the owner of health and care service deliveries in Moray. Even Scottish Government has no power in influencing local decision made HSCM.
2. HSCM has yet to share their detailed review of SOS full proposal. We shall be requesting such review especially when it is now being used to favour one proposal.
3. NHSG has open up about their tendency to talk and listen but lack of actions. We shall be inviting NHSG (and HSCM and MIJB) to visit our communities and listen to them on what it's meant by unmet needs, if the recent communities conversation events still didn't provide enough evidence.

We would be following up on the expected feedbacks and requesting for detailed information to be shared.

We remain hopeful that 2026 could bring a better acceptance of community inputs, sharing of information and collaboration to find workable solutions to real problems facing our communities.

22/12/2025

Our own experience may support her conclusion in a way. Do they talk a lot? Do they listen a lot? Do they change anything?

We might all feel desperate to have those senior officers listening, even if a little bit, to understand, and not merely so they could defend themselves? Would be brilliant if they would accept that criticism and complaints are way to learn and improve what matters to people. It would have been great if the community inclusion's applied as proper inclusion and not just to confirm decision making process.

We applaud her for making quick observation within the short time since she took over.
We would fully support any initiative that would see action to make sure that proper analysis of the situation and actions put in place accordingly to change.

And for that to happen, we could only hope that there would be change of attitude and mentality towards positive change process, if we are to see positive impacts for Moray and NHS Grampian in in general.

Enough talk, let's support positive leadership for the betterment of our communities.

https://www.facebook.com/share/1G7eRbMLi1/

NHS Grampian chief executive Laura Skaife-Knight has hit out at the culture at the troubled health board – admitting senior figures “talk and listen lots” but “very rarely” change anything.

Read more here: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0qB6Ht0

26/11/2025

It has been 4 years since the few members of our communities got together and decided to not give up.

It has been 4 years of trying to follow the proper norms. 4 years of trying to engage so that we could help in making the difference for our communities.

Let's do a consultation to review the process, Scottish Government said. Join the Locality Planning, HSCM asked. Let's engage. Work together to write proposal, Scottish Government said, finally.

It feels like a very long 4 years trying to urge brick wall to listen. We have been bounced from one wall to the others. It's a very long 4 years investing time and energy even if it is to make a very small difference.
Countless meetings, more than enough words said. Not enough actions sadly.
4 years on and our communities remain just numbers on statistics that don't seem to matter however bad the situation gas gotten into.

We are drained and at time fed up but we will still stand and carry the flame forward, until somebody comes forward to take the responsibility to right what's wrong.

05/11/2025

Harrowing verdict from Auditor General on the state of NHS Grampian.

It raised concerns about the effectiveness of the current leadership arrangements, Governance and significant workforce challenges.

It went further to single out IJBs as significant barriers to overcome.

Perhaps NHS Grampian and IJBs need to start by accepting that their performance was not just failing behind national standards but also against the previous year.

We have been more than disappointed in our dealings with MIJB/NHS Grampian, who never accepted any of our request to meet. It gave the impression as if nobody at the leadership was willing to take responsibility not just for the failings, but most importantly for the much needed changes within its strategic direction.

We understand that there are new people in charge both at MIJB and NHS Grampian and we will use this opportunity to appeal to the leadership to take actions that will matter to the way the services are delivered for the communities.

https://www.northern-scot.co.uk/news/devastating-report-finds-nhs-grampian-needs-significant-r-418504/?utm_source=HNM+Newsletters&utm_campaign=6d44ac872e-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2025_11_04_09_10&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-6d44ac872e-643105001

04/11/2025

Last Thursday we attended this Community Conversation event in Burghead. As predicted, the number of staff on the panel was sadly more than the public😞
We have again highlighted the choice of time for the event which excludes many. We have suggested the possibility for the panel to join the many established groups in the villages who meet regularly (BALL, Social Hub, Men Shed, mothers and toddlers, Village halls coffee mornings etc) to improve engagement with wider community members.

While celebration of community spirits was acknowledged at the start, we were keen to dissect the statistics, looking for explanations on potential impacts of the closure of our surgeries on A&E attendance and waiting list.

It is the first time that we feel like we were listened to, our questions on statistics were being noted down and actions planned to provide some answers.
This is a credit to the panel. It felt like a proper conversation to try and understand both sides of the stories.

The Consultant touched the issue of resources in responding to many health needs, which we fully supported and thus brought the attention back to the rationale for our request to pilot new initiative at community level.
We have been requesting proper analysis, not just the health needs and impacts/outcomes, but also cost benefits/effectiveness, which was never entertained by Health and Social Care Moray.
Under the circumstances of financial difficulties facing NHS Grampian, shouldn't evaluating the way things are being done be a priority? For example, while we do not know the cost of organising these community converstaions with a dedicated Public health consultant supported by that many team members for the time needed. Could it be done in different way, more cost effective with better attendance?

We look forward to feedbacks from the panel and stand ready to share information at hand for better understanding of our community.

22/10/2025

Following the set of data we shared earlier, here is another.

It is very important and absolutely necessary to say here that these data don't intend to point fingers at our frontline staff at the department - doctors, nurses, paramedics, ambulance team... - who work tirelessly day in day out against the system that don't support and undermine their hard work, resulting in heartbreaking statistics like this.

It is also important to say that we were obliged to look into secondary statistics to prove the point - which we shouldn't need to as it is already proven everywhere else that problem at primary health care level will overburden secondary health care.

Requesting better service delivery at community primary health care level is the main reason of our campaign to pilot a new approach to service delivery at community level.

This set of data shows waiting time for A&E at Dr. Gray's.

The recent HSC Moray Adult Joint Strategic Needs Assessment, published this year, stated that our standard 4 hours waiting time is better than Grampian and Scotland at 71% (decreasing again to 68% in 2024 according to the FoI we obtained).

This may be misleading if we don't put that number into perspective against the fact that Moray figure has been deteriorating since 2015 (available data to us) where it was 97%.

Furthermore, the waiting time from arrival to initial assessment had more than DOUBLES and from arrival to ready to be discharged had more than TRIPLED.
(All data using 2015 as baseline).

The rhetoric of comparing our performance to worse performers needs to stop and action needs to be taken to sort out root causes of this problem to avoid worst case scenario too late to manage.

Richard Lochhead MSP Douglas Ross MSP Rhoda Grant MSP Neil Gray MSP Jenni Minto MSP Cllr Neil Cameron - Moray Cllr. Bridget Mustard, Scott Lawrence Councillor for Forres area Councillor Sandy Keith, Cllr. Ben Williams, Cllr. Peter Bloomfield

Health and Social Care Moray
NHS Grampian

20/10/2025

💭 What does good health and wellbeing look like in the and area?

📢 We’re coming to your community!

Join Health & Social Care Moray for an all-ages interactive Community Conversation on Thursday 30 October, 2–4pm at Burghead Community Hall.

This is your chance to explore what the local health picture looks like – and to share what really makes a difference to wellbeing where you live.

❓ What stands out from the health data which will be presented by Elizabeth Robinson, Consultant in Public Health at NHS Grampian?
❓Which issues feel most urgent or important to improve?
❓ What small steps could we take right away to start making change?

☕ Come along for friendly discussion • local insights • opportunities to influence • or just for the tea and biscuits!

🎟️ Free to attend – no need to book, just come along.
📧 Email [email protected]

20/10/2025

As promised, here is the first set of data that
we are hoping to get explanation for.

We obtained the data from FoI request.

These are the numbers (and percentage) of A&E attendance from our IV30 5 area against IV31 and total attendance recorded at Dr. Gray's.

With the exception of covid years, there is a significant increase, approx 25%, in our population attending A&E, compared to our neighbours within IV31 post code, from 2019 (was that when we had IT problems resulting in temporary closure of the branch surgeries?) and from 2022 onwards?

Could it be because we are less healthy?
Could it be because our community experienced more health problems requiring visit to A&E?
Could it be because we had to go straight to A&E as it is easier to reach by public transport than going to the practice in Lossie?
Could it be combination of all of those (and maybe more unknown factors)?

Some of our community members had told us through our survey that they had given up seeking care, unless it is really bad resulting in A&E visit or ambulance call out😞

We have been told time and again by our HSCM that our area is considered a wealthy area with better health outcomes (that also means high ownership of cars which make transport cost to the practice associated with closure of our branch surgeries less important).

If that's so, what would be the explanation for this high A&E attendance?

Share your experience with us to help us better understand the numbers🙏

18/10/2025

If you can make it, please try to come and make your voice heard.
If you need help with the registration for tickets, let us know and we can see if we can still get some.

It is unfortunate that the timing of event on a Thursday 2 - 4PM will exclude many:
Those on 9-5 jobs
Those with school age children, especially primary school age, as they will need to do school run during this time.

We have been informed that this is the only time when the officer can make it.
So, let's do it. Let's hear what they have to say.

We are glad to see that a phone number and an email address had been added to the online ticketing system may put many at disadvantage.

In the coming days, we will be sharing our area specific statistics with you. Hope they will help the discussion.

https://www.facebook.com/share/1ADvJ2jcFC/

💭 What does good health and wellbeing look like in the and area?

📢 We’re coming to your community!

Join Health & Social Care Moray for an all-ages interactive Community Conversation on Thursday 30 October, 2–4pm at Burghead Community Hall.

This is your chance to explore what the local health picture looks like – and to share what really makes a difference to wellbeing where you live.

❓ What stands out from the health data which will be presented by Elizabeth Robinson, Consultant in Public Health at NHS Grampian?
❓Which issues feel most urgent or important to improve?
❓ What small steps could we take right away to start making change?

☕ Come along for friendly discussion • local insights • opportunities to influence • or just for the tea and biscuits!

🎟️ Free to attend – no need to book, just come along.
📧 Email [email protected]