Official Report · Chamber
General Question Time
This is the draft Official Report. The final version may differ.
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I voluntarily remind members of an interest: my wife is a GP partner.
To ask the Scottish Government what evidence informed its view that a four-hour walk-in general practitioner centre operating on Friday afternoons in Elgin will be sufficient to meet local healthcare in Moray. (S7O-00462)
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NHS Grampian is responsible for the design, delivery and planning of its walk-in services, including in Elgin. The board is focused on ensuring that safe and sustainable services can be stood up for Moray as soon as possible, and it has agreed to this initial phased opening to provide access for local people while a fuller service is established. My officials remain in close contact with the board while that work continues, and we remain clear that services must roll out to provide a seven-day operation as soon as possible.
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This is a bit of a mess. The site is a palliative care centre on the outskirts of Elgin. It has no direct bus service, it is open for only four hours on a Friday afternoon, there are very serious concerns about infection control and it will likely rely on local GPs, who are already stretched across the area. Major professional bodies have highlighted serious concerns, so why will the Government not scrap the plans and, instead, invest in local GP practices that are much closer to all patients?
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It is not an either/or. We are doing both: we are investing in general practice and in primary care. Neil Gray, my predecessor, delivered a historic additional resource investment for GP practices of £531 million over three years.
The walk-in centres are about complementing GP practices, not competing with them. More than 21,000 cases have been seen via walk-in services thus far, which demonstrates that there is clear public demand for that model of care.
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It is welcome that, across the country, we have seen more than 21,000 cases treated in GP walk-in centres since they started to open in February. That demonstrates the reach that those services have in local communities, which I want to see people in Moray benefit from. Will the cabinet secretary join me in calling on NHS Grampian, which operates the service and is looking to move it to an alternative location in Moray, to extend the GP walk-in centre’s opening hours to seven days a week as soon as possible?
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Yes, I will do that. For the avoidance of doubt, I repeat what I said earlier: I am crystal clear that I expect services in Elgin and, indeed, in Inverurie to be further rolled out to a seven-day-a-week programme. However, it is important that that is done in a safe and sustainable way. The initial phase in Elgin is intended to be a starting point, not an end point. This is about mobilising new services while always ensuring patient safety. As I said earlier, it is a matter for NHS Grampian to lead on, but I remain in close contact with it.
The type of each item (debate, statement, questions, members’ business and so on) and the times shown are worked out by this site from headings, the chair’s opening words and the Official Report’s running timestamps. They are not the Parliament’s own classification. Text: the Scottish Parliament Official Report.