Urgent appeal for nurses in Scottish Highlands to deal with pandemic

All registered nurses with the appropriate experience are being asked to come forward.

An urgent appeal has been made in the Scottish Highlands for nurses amid the coronavirus outbreak.

This evening, one of the region’s senior medics urged nurses to come forward if they had intensive care or surgical or medical high dependency experience.

Stephen Loch, lead nurse for workforce planning and development in NHS Highland, took to Twitter to make the plea.

He said: “If u r a RN in @NHSHighland or @HighlandCouncil or live in Highland area & have Intensive Care / MHDU /SHDU experience (if you have not already been contacted or work there already) could you get in touch please, many thanks.”

The call for help came as the Highland health board recorded 36 cases of coronavirus.

The number of coronavirus-related deaths in Scotland had risen today by seven to 40, according to government figures released at 2pm.