THOUSANDS LOSE THEIR FAMILY GP
Shortage of doctors forcing surgeries to close across Scotland
ALMOST 20,000 patients are set to lose their family doctor as a crippling GP shortage closes surgeries across Scotland.
Long- established practices are being hit as a generation of GPs enter retirement, while trainee doctors leave to work abroad.
This year alone, at least 19,500 patients will be forced into the care of locums and neighbouring surgeries, as doctors warn they are on ‘the brink of crisis’.
With two in five newly qualified GPs understood to be heading overseas, watchdog Taxpayer-Scotland last night called for young medics to be required to stay for up to five years after they train.
Spokesman Eben Wilson said: ‘The NHS in its planning has amazingly provided us with a shortage of GPs, which is a clear failure. It is a terrible waste of money if the NHS and our taxes are supporting these doctors to train, with no benefit for us.
‘Training as a doctor is a contract and part of becoming a professional should mean loyalty to the institution that trains you, not going abroad straight away afterwards.’
The decimation of doctors’ numbers has prompted the Royal College of GPs to
warn that Scotland could be short of more than 900 family doctors by 2020.
The British Medical Association (BMA) in Scotland says GP numbers will be slashed by a third by the end of the decade, while almost one in five surgeries already has at least one GP post vacant.
By the end of September, 8,000 patients across Aberdeen will lose their surgery when Brimmond Medical Group is forced to close.
The practice blames planned retirement of some doctors, the unforeseen departure of others and new housing estates ramping up patient numbers. It is unclear where its patients will go, amid ‘commercially sensitive negotiations’, although NHS Grampian has said it is hopeful another GP team will take them on.
Meanwhile, 9,500 people reliant on Bannockburn Medical Practice in Stirlingshire
‘On brink of a crisis in general practice’
have lost their family doctors, after the remaining two GPs left this month.
Despite advertising for replacements, health board NHS Forth Valley was unable to recruit them and has been forced to take over the practice.
Another 2,000 patients in Edinburgh have lost their doctor after half of the six GPs at Leith Links Medical Practice left.
Even in Scotland’s capital, two rounds of advertising for new doctors were unsuccessful, forcing patients to be transferred to other surgeries.
NHS Lothian has 27 doctors’ surgeries – more than one in five – operating with ‘restrictions’ on patients as the crisis mounts.
Dr Colette Maule, co-negotiator for the BMA’s Scottish GP committee said: ‘The closure of three practices in Scotland should serve as a warning we are on the brink of a crisis in general practice. Unless urgent action is taken to improve recruitment and retention of GPs, it is likely we’ll see practices closing elsewhere.’
Labour MSP Richard Simpson, a GP for almost 30 years, said: ‘The SNP are in denial about the increasingly rapid deterioration in doctors’ surgeries in Scotland.
‘The problem is that being a GP is just not seen as attractive any more, with many working ten-hour days. I have it from a reliable source that among emerging rates of newly qualified GPs, up to 40 per cent of them are emigrating to other countries.’
Health boards yesterday moved to allay fears over the surgeries already losing their family doctors. A spokesman for NHS Grampian said patients would be contacted with news as soon as it was available, adding: ‘A formal process is under way to secure future services. Due to the commercially sensitive nature of this, we are unable to provide details.’
Professor Alex McMahon, director of strategic planning at NHS Lothian, said: ‘We are currently carrying out a major review of demand, capacity and access in primary care to enhance facilities and services for patients for the years ahead.’
Health Secretary Shona Robison said: ‘Under this government, the number of GPs employed in Scotland has risen by 7 per cent to nearly 5,000 – the highestever on record. We have also increased funding by 10 per cent and there are more GPs per head of population in Scotland than in England.’