Care home resident left dead in room for 24 hours as GP shortages hit home

● Out-of-hours GP services nationwide are failing due to a lack of doctors

A Scottish care home resident lay dead in her room for a full day awaiting a doctor to certify death because there was no on-call doctor available due to a shortage of out-of-hours GPS.

The shocking case from earlier this year was revealed following a warning from Scottish doctors that out-of-hours GP services nationwide are failing due to a lack of staff.

Just one in five GPS is willing to work out-of-hours, with heavy workloads in family practices resulting in most refusing to take on weekend and nighttime work.

Some out-of-hours centres have been forced to close due to a shortage of doctors.

One GP from Glasgow, Ronnie Burns, works at a busy health centre and does weekend shifts at the out-of-hours centre at the New Victoria Hospital once a fortnight.

He recalled starting a weekend shift earlier this year when he was told that no doctor had been able to visit a care home where a resident had died, to certify them dead.

Dr Burns said: “The care home was left with the dead resident for 24 hours.” He added how much it had upset the staff, saying: “They remember it well, months later.”

Dr Andrew Buist, chairman of the British Medical Association GP committee, said: “There is a chronic shortage of GPS during normal daytime surgeries. The evening and weekend shortage is a serious problem.

“Being a GP with the increasing list of patients and burden of paperwork is much less attractive than it was previously. The incentive to work overtime for nothing after an exhausting ten or 11-hour day in a surgery is not there. Understandably, they want to be home with their families.”

Scotland’s out-of-hours GPS are based in centres where teams are divided into those taking surgeries and those on house calls.

Dr Burns said: “At its worst, usually after busy weekend shifts, people can be left waiting 24 hours, but on the whole it is still functioning.

“I’ve had two shifts in the last six months where I was seeing patients at home who had called for a doctor the previous day.”

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “We have a record number of GPS working in Scotland and we are committed to increasing numbers by at least 800 in the next ten years. We are also investing an additional £250 million in direct support of general practice by 2021.”

A spokesperson for NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde said: “We are aware that GP out-of-hours services are busy and that is why we have developed a campaign to remind patients that they should not attend a GP out-of-hours service before calling NHS 24.”