The biggest hospital in the Scottish Highlands has declared a rare ‘code black status’ amid rising Covid cases and many staff in isolation.

Capacity has been reached at Raigmore Hospital in Inverness, with all non-urgent elective surgery cancelled as a result.

Outpatient activity – aside from cancer, urgent and some other activities – has been abandoned.

It comes as NHS Highland sees ‘unprecedented demand’ for health and social care services.

A statement said urgent work is taking place to ensure patients can be treated ‘appropriately and compassionately’.

The area has reported more than 100 new coronavirus infections per day.

More than 1,300 cases were recorded in June – around a fifth of the health board’s total number of infections since the pandemic hit.

A spokesperson for NHS Highland said: ‘The number of COVID-19 cases across our area has increased significantly.

‘This is impacting on NHS Highland as some of these cases are now being admitted into our hospitals.

‘We are also seeing the impact on a large number of our staff, across a number of settings, who are having to self-isolate leading to gaps and pressures in our service.

‘In addition to this we are also at the beginning of the summer school holidays and planned annual leave.

‘The impact of this at Raigmore Hospital, in particular, has been significant over the past few days.

‘We have reached capacity in the hospital, we have long waits in our Emergency Department and we know people requiring urgent care will still need to come in for treatment. As a result, the hospital is currently at code black status.’

Dr Boyd Peters, medical director for NHS Highland, said: ‘We are doing all we can to safeguard services but we have had to make the difficult decision to cancel non-urgent work which I know many will find upsetting and frustrating. We are very sorry that we have had to do this.’

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