Continuing Fife’s out-of-hours GP service in its reduced form for the next six months has been branded both ludicrous and unacceptable.
The controversial contingency measures — closing the midnight to 8am service at Dunfermline’s Queen Margaret, Glenrothes and St Andrews Community hospitals and concentrating overnight primary care emergency service in the Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy — were introduced for a three-month trial in April to cope with staff shortages.
With no improvement in recruiting staff, Fife Health and Social Care Partnership has now extended this until January.
But that move has brought widespread criticism from across the political spectrum.
North East Fife SNP MP Stephen Gethins said: “It is simply not acceptable for them to suddenly announce that closures will continue for another six months while at the same time, announcing the start of a consultation on future provision of health services including out-of-hours.
“It is bad enough that many people living in north east Fife face a lengthy drive to either Kirkcaldy or Dundee for out-of-hours services but to continue this into the winter when driving conditions may be hazardous, is ludicrous.”
Fellow north east Fife politician, Lib Dem MSP Willie Rennie added: “The crisis shortage of GPs is really beginning to bite on the quality and coverage of health services in Fife.
“No primary care emergency service for St Andrews through the busy tourist season and into the next academic year at the university is not right.
“North east Fife is also remote and rural with considerable journey times to Kirkcaldy.
“That poses a real risk and needs to be addressed.”
Dunfermline SNP MSP Shirley-Anne Somerville was also deeply concerned about the ongoing lack of local services.
Pledging to “do everything” to ensure the service will be reinstated at the Queen Margaret, she urged locals to respond to the upcoming consultation on the future of health services.
Calling the extension “unacceptable”, Mid Scotland and Fife Labour MSP Claire Baker claimed: “The previous Health Secretary buried her hand in the sand over the GP crisis facing Fife, unaware of the true extent of the problems facing practices and patients throughout the kingdom.
“That is why the new Health Secretary must promise to make tackling the issue one of her top priorities in the brief.”
Cowdenbeath SNP MSP Annabelle Ewing added: “This is very disappointing news indeed, I really had hoped that the staffing issues which led to the introduction of these contingency arrangements would have been resolved by now.”
