Earlier this year Transport Scotland put in place an ‘Urgent Medical Appointment Protocol’. It is intended to make sure that islanders with a mainland medical appointment who are unable to book their car onto a suitable ferry are still able to attend.
This service has been available for many months, but despite hearing many stories of missed hospital appointments over the summer, it has never been used on Mull. This is perhaps because it isn’t well known about.
Even in November, a full ferry can make it difficult to get to a late-notice appointment or hospital discharge. So – if you have been given a medical appointment that you need to travel to by car but can’t get a booking, please consider taking advantage of this service. CalMac will either a) make sure you can get onto the relevant sailings with your car; or b) provide you with a taxi for the mainland portion of your journey (so you can travel across as a foot passenger and meet the taxi in Oban). The service only applies on bookable routes, and is unlikely to help if a ferry cancellation is the cause.
To use the service you need to ring CalMac customer services on 0800 066 5000, and make it clear that you need to use the Urgent Medical Appointment Protocol .
You can read more details on CalMac’s website here.
In the Protocol it stated that Calmac would be working towards providing reserved places on ferry crossings. Do you know if any progress has been made on this matter or is it being sidelined until the new booking system is introduced?