Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Call for external review of ‘flawed’ consultation
CAMPAIGNERS alarmed at plans to push ahead with controversial changes to St Andrews out-ofhours GP services have called for an external rev iew of the proposal.
The St Andrews Out-Of-Hours Group is to set up a meeting with the Scottish Government to discuss its concerns the new model is unsafe and unsustainable following a “flawed” consultation process.
Group chairwoman Dr Angela
Anderson said she was disillusioned and angry about how Fife Health and Social Care Partnership had redesigned the urgent care service at St Andrews Community Hospital.
The first phase of Fife’s new outof-hours model begins with bases in St Andrews, Kirkcaldy and Dunfermline. The centre at Glenrothes Hospital will close. The full service will be in place by July.
While the partnership has agreed to meet with the north-east Fife campaigners, it has made it clear the service will be implemented as agreed by its integration joint board, although it will be closely monitored.
Dr Anderson, a former GP, claimed the group had been frozen out of any substantive involvement in the service redesign, despite her six years of experience in the sector with the Scottish Government.
“Instead of collecting information from frontline staff about problems and solutions, the partnership came with a preset framework of proposed cuts, leaving workshop participants no option but to choose the least undesirable option,” she said.
She said the group had signed off on the emerging new model under “considerable pressure” from the partnership, with the assurance they would be involved in refining the details. “This has not happened,” she said.