Health and social care chiefs are accused of snubbing St Andrews

Fife’s health and social care partnership has been accused of snubbing St Andrews in an imminent consultation on out-ofhours GP services.

The area’s politicians said the board failed to see the benefits of keeping overnight primary care locally-run and to explain why it was not considered as an option.

MPs and MSPs from four parties united last month to write to board members expressing astonishment and urging them to reconsider.

They said they had still not been given an adequate answer.

A consultation on healthcare across Fife, including out-of-hours cover, started last week and the choices put to communities are either all out-of-hours staff based at Victoria Hospital, Kirkcaldy, or in Kirkcaldy and Dunfermline.

A previous arrangement of having services at four locations, including St Andrews and Glenrothes, is not on the table, although the partnership said the public could indicate this as their preferred choice if they wished.

In their letter, Liberal Democrat MSP Willie Rennie, Labour’s Claire Baker, Conservatives Liz Smith and Murdo Fraser, and SNP MP Stephen Gethins said they had been struck by a proposal by local GPs that they could resume seeing patients at St Andrews Hospital for the north-east Fife area.

They said the fact it had not been discussed was “discourteous” to the 100 or so who attended a public meeting in St Andrews and others who wrote to express concern.

In his reply, partnership chairman Simon Little said the options proposed had been selected following an option appraisal process involving the public, staff, clinicians and managers.

Mr Rennie described the response as disappointing and added: “Since St Andrews is not even included in the consultation, there’s not been a chance for this option to even be considered.”

“I can’t imagine there is a good reason for this since, despite being asked about it, the chair of the board wasn’t able to provide an answer as to why St Andrews has been left out.”