Scotland’s GP has called for improved coordination of out-of-hours services for patients. This comes in the wake of the Scottish Parliament’s debate on rural out-of-hours services. Scotland’s GP leaders are asking the Scottish Government and NHS Scotland to scale up efforts to establish higher quality standards and improve coordination, in order to deliver real improvements to patients.

GP leaders emphasised that none of these changes would require a renegotiation of the GP contract. Dr. Andrew Buist, the Deputy Chairman of the BMA’s Scottish GP Committee, refuted the belief that the current problems stemmed from the GP contract introduced in 2004. “This is not the case. In many areas, such as Greater Glasgow, the service that operated prior to 2004 is the same service that continues to operate, albeit the service is now directly managed by the NHS Board”.

The new contract was intended to address a crisis in general practice, and to ensure the sustainability of out-of-hours care for patients. The contract allowed GPs to shift responsibility for out-of-hours care provision to the local NHS board. “In today’s modern service much more complex care is provided to patients in hours and there needs to be a comprehensive out-of-hours service that does not rely on over-tired GPs bearing the brunt of the work”, said Dr. Buist.