The Scottish Government has been accused of leaving Angus GPs toiling under “an unprecedented workload”.
Angus MP Kirstene Hair hit out after new statistics from ISD Scotland revealed practice list sizes have soared by an average of 250 in the last decade.
The county has 17 practices, which between them employed 98 GPs on average in each year since 2008.
However, the average list size – the number of patients on each practice’s books – has increased from 6,740 to 6,976 in the last decade.
The average Scottish practice now has 6,073 people on its list.
According to the National Register for Scotland, the population of Angus increased by 2.4% from 2007 to 2017 – from 113,540 to 116,280.
Conservative MP Ms Hair said the static number of GPs meant practices were struggling to keep up with the increased workload, and pointed to the recent closure of GP lists in Forfar as a symptom of failures to fund the NHS properly north of the border.
She said: “Earlier this year the Prime Minister announced an extra £2 billion of funding will come to the Scottish Government as a consequence of her plans for the NHS in England.
“Angus has a largely static number of GPs and practices but the population is growing and there are only so many appointments to go around.
“Unfortunately the SNP have yet to commit to spending the £2bn on the health service in Scotland, and the Barnett money doesn’t have to be ring-fenced.
“Our doctors are giving excellent care but a growing population needs more trained GPs immediately.”
Health Secretary Jeane Freeman insisted the Scottish Government was committed to increasing the number of GPs in Scotland by at least 800 over the next decade.
“We welcome the increase in GP numbers, with the additional 75 GPs over the last year, meaning we now have a record number of GPs working in Scotland,” she said.
“GP numbers in the Angus council area have increased by over 11% since 2016.”
She said the government was investing a further £7.5 million in Scotland in 2018/19 in GP recruitment and retention.
“The number of doctors in training has increased by more than 10% under this Government,” she added.
“In addition, by 2020-21 we will have increased medical school places by 22%, equivalent to an extra 190 places.
“The new GP contract is backed by £110 million this year and negotiated with the BMA and GPs – introduces multi-disciplinary teams to practices to ensure GPs are able to spend more time with patients, and less time on bureaucracy, making a career in general practice even more attractive to younger doctors.”
