Invergowrie Medical Practice could have a long-term future if newly-qualified Tayside GPs stop moving abroad.
That is the view of Dr David Shaw, associate medical director of Tayside Primary Care.
He told the Perth and Kinross Integration Joint Board (IJB) that it would be impossible for the centre to continue in its current form given the local area’s chronic staffing challenges.
He therefore backed a recommendation for the Invergowrie facility, which is served by Dr Ronnie Ip, a GP who also holds a contract for the Ancrum Medical Practice, to close on June 16.
But the building will remain in NHS hands and some basic medical services will continue there.
And with NHS Tayside currently training 100 junior doctors, there is hope that the GPs shortage will abate.
“Now that we are training more GPs we need to fix the retention side, given a third of our newly-qualified GPs ultimately end up going off to Canada and Australia.” Dr Shaw said.
“Then we could readvertise a contract [for Invergowrie] at some point in the future.
“But in the shorter term no one will take such a contract.”
17 unfilled vacancies in six months
NHS Tayside announced in February that the door would permanently close on the Invergowrie practice amid challenges in running the service.
This was due to retirements at both the Ancrum and Invergowrie surgeries, and an inability to recruit new medics.
The majority of the practice’s 1,776 patients will be expected to travel to Ancrum, 3.5 miles away.
A report presented to the IJB says the GP’s contract was advertised on April 10 but no tenders were received.
Also no practice to date had approached the current GP partner to propose a merger.
Primary care services manager Deborah McGill revealed there are 23 vacancies in Tayside’s 61 practices.
Of these, 17 have been unfilled for more than six months.
“Finance had very little to do with our options,” said Dr Shaw.
“We worked with the doctor to see if he could bolster his team.
“He managed to recruit an additional salaried GP but he remains the only partner and his team is still not large enough to safely deliver comprehensive services over two sites.”
He did add, however, that now he has another pair of hands the lead GP said he would review the situation in six months time.
‘Three to four hours’ for an appointment
A 566-name petition to keep the medical practice running was presented by Bailie Alasdair Bailey, ward member for Carse of Gowrie.
He told the meeting: “If someone from Kingoodie [without transport] wants to attend Ancum Road they face an hour-long journey on two buses with a 20-minute wait in between in town.
“Compounding that, there’s only one bus and hour so will take three to four hours depending on whether the appointment ties in with buses.
“If we look at the bigger picture there is no net change in the number of GPs.
“We should therefore question why there is any need to withdraw GP services from Invergowrie.”
This view was echoed by Cllr Colin Stewart, ward member for Strathmore.
He called for the direct management of the practice “until a more sustainable solution can be found.”
He added: “I don’t think you can sensibly move all the patients from Invergowrie up to Ancrum medical centre and then expect that in 6 months time there will be a situation where you can reverse it.
“That would be unnecessarily disruptive.”
The IJB agreed to pass on a summary of its views to the NHS Tayside Board, which will make the final decision at its meeting on Thursday.
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