Angry residents have left Fife’s health and social care chiefs in no doubt as to the strength of feeling against planned out-of-hours GP service closures.
A larger venue had to be found at the 11th hour for a consultation meeting in St Andrews on Monday night as around 250 people turned up to protest the proposed cuts.
It followed a similar meeting in Anstruther last week where scores of concerned members of the public expressed outrage at a plan to close the evening and weekend GP service at St Andrews Hospital, forcing patients to travel to either Kirkcaldy or Dunfermline.
The proposal also includes the closure of the out-of-hours service at Glenrothes Hospital after a lack of medical staff on the Fife-wide rota prompted fears for patient safety.
Fife Health and Social Care Partnership insists centralising the service is the only way to ensure safe and fair treatment across the region, despite the fact GPs in St Andrews offered to continue working out-of-hours there.
As north east Fife includes a particularly large elderly population, as well as almost 8,000 St Andrews University students, the move to end the service there has been branded indefensible.
As a petition started by North East Fife MSP Willie Rennie against the proposal reached more than 4,400 signatures, the Scottish Liberal Democrat leader said people were furious.
“Monday’s meeting has left the partnership in no doubt this really matters to the people of north east Fife,” he said.
“There was a lot of informed comment about what the impact would be.
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“The distance to Kirkcaldy over poor quality roads is just too long a journey and the large elderly, student and visitor population means St Andrews needs an out-of-hours service locally.”
East Neuk councillors Linda Holt, John Docherty and Bill Porteous have now called for a special meeting of north east Fife area committee specifically to discuss the issue and have asked that partnership director Michael Kellet be invited.
In a joint statement, the three said it is clear there is an enormous amount of public concern.
They claimed local GPs had not been timeously involved in the consultation process and added: “North east Fife, specifically the East Neuk, suffers the worst transport connections in Fife and contains the highest proportion of elderly residents in Fife – the highest number of over-85s in the whole of Scotland.
“We do not feel these facts have been taken proper account of by the health and social care partnership.”
Mr Kellet said no decisions on out-of-hours had been made and urged people to get involved in the consultation and put forward any sustainable options.
“The discussions will help to inform how we go forward,” he said.
The consultation can be found online at www.fifehealthandsocialcare.org/joiningupcare/Â
