Health Secretary denies doctors’ claims of GP crisis

The Health Secretary has been forced to deny there is a crisis in Scotland’s GP sector – mere minutes after top doctors insisted one was “manifest”.

Shona Robison made the claim in the same sitting of a Holyrood committee where MSPs were told by health professionals that recruitment problems are starting to affect patients.

Alex Cole-Hamilton, of the Liberal Democrats, asked the Dundee City East MSP if there was a crisis at the Scottish Parliament’s Health Committee.

She said: “No, I would characterise it as being very challenging. We could sit and discuss terminology all morning. Would that take us very far? I don’t think so.”

Ms Robison went on to say she was focussed on finding solutions to the major issues facing GPs and their patients in Scotland and pointed to reforms currently being carried out by the Scottish Government.

Recent analysis by the Royal College of GPs (RCGP) Scotland shows that the NHS north of the border will have lost 12 family doctors in just the last three months – the equivalent of one every eight days.

Earlier, the British Medical Association’s Dr Alan McDevitt told members that “crisis is now manifest”.

And Dr Miles Mack from the Royal College of General Practitioners said “the truth” needed to be told.

The duo were giving evidence alongside Gerry Lawrie, deputy director of workforce, NHS Grampian and Lesley McLay, chief executive of NHS Tayside.

The panel was challenged by committee members on the use of the word “crisis” to describe the current recruitment issues.

Dr Mack said being a general practitioner was “a fantastic job” and he regretted having to talk about his profession in “negative terms”, but he added “we have to tell the truth”.

MSPs were told there was currently a 28% vacancy rate in general practice around Scotland and that the number of posts that still vacant after six months rose from 42 last year to 80 this year.

Dr McDevitt said: “The crisis, the shortage of GPs, is now manifest and we are working very hard to change the fundamental nature of general practice to make it attractive for both doctors to stay in and to come into as a future career.”

Mr Cole-Hamilton said: “If the cabinet secretary does not think this is a crisis she is deluded.”