GPS back calls for independent agency to help rural patients
RURAL medics have backed a petition calling for an Australianstyle commissioner to advocate for patients in more remote parts of Scotland.
In submissions to MSPS they argue that general practice has been disadvantaged by a “bizarre” funding formula, and criticise cuts to local services and “arduous journeys” for cancer treatment or childbirth.
The petition, due to be discussed at the Scottish Parliament on Wednesday, has been lodged by retired GP Dr Gordon Baird on behalf of the Galloway Community Hospital Action Trust.
It calls for an independent agency to “advocate for rural communities” and “ensure that policy implementation by health boards is both fair and reasonable”, citing the example of Australia’s Rural Healthcare Commissioner.
The post, currently held by GP obstetrician Professor Ruth Stewart, was created in 2017 to tackle health inequalities and advise government on rural and outback communities.
Dr Baird, a former chairman of Scotland’s Royal College of General Practitioners Rural Practice Standing Group, has long campaigned to end the situation whereby cancer patients in Dumfries and Galloway have to travel to Edinburgh for treatment even though specialist services in Glasgow are closer.
In some cases a round trip using patient transport can take more than eight hours.
Research has shown that rural cancer patients have higher mortality on average than urban patients, and are less likely to be admitted to a bed if they live more than three hours from the cancer unit.
Dr Baird took up the cause after his school music teacher, a woman in her 80s with terminal cancer, spent nearly nine hours travelling back from Edinburgh to her home in Sandhead following palliative therapy in 1998.
“I asked if there was anything I could do, thinking I could make her tea or something,” said Dr Baird.
“She looked at me and said ‘can you make sure this doesn’t happen to anyone else?’. Now those nine-hour journeys are less common, but they’re not unknown.
“All we want is for things to be fair and reasonable, and at the moment there’s no one to adjudicate on that.”
The petition has been backed by
Professor Phil Wilson, director of the Centre For Rural Health at Aberdeen University, who argued that 2018’s Scottish GP contract was “grossly unfair” and had “disastrous consequences for the sustainability of remote and rural general practice”.
He slammed the “bizarre methodology” that resulted in extra funding flowing into urban Central Belt practices while recruitment of GPS to rural practices – which did not benefit from the funding formula – “became much more difficult”.
Professor Wilson added: “In my view, a Rural Health Commissioner with access to the policymaking process would almost certainly have prevented or mitigated the damage caused by the 2018 contract.”
It is also supported by the Rural
GP Association of Scotland, whose former chairman, Dr David Hogg, resigned from the Scottish Government’s working group which was set up in the wake of the GP contract controversy – due to “lack of progress” in addressing the concerns of rural GPS.
In a written response to the petition, Health Secretary Jeane Freeman said that GP relocation packages have been increased from £2,000 to £5,000 and eligibility widened to all remote and rural practices.
Ms Freeman added: “While the fair and reasonable management of remote and rural healthcare issues is an outcome the Scottish Government continues to support and promote, the establishment of a separate agency for this purpose is not considered the most efficient way of delivering that outcome.”