Fife’s out of hours GP service is to continue in a controversially reduced form for the next six months.
There has been widespread condemnation of the contingency measures – brought in to overcome a shortage of staff cover – since their introduction at short notice in April.
The reduced service, which sees primary care emergency services only available at the Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy between midnight and 8am, was originally meant to run for only three months.
Just days before the date the provisions were supposed to end – and before a major consultation on the future of healthcare across Fife is launched – they have been extended for another six months, with a full review to take place at the end of January.
The move, which has seen the out of hours service cut from Queen Margaret Hospital in Dunfermline, Glenrothes Hospital and St Andrews Community Hospital, has been blamed on “ongoing nursing and medical staffing difficulties and has been taken to ensure patient safety.
There will be no change to the minor injuries unit at Queen Margaret.
Fife Health and Social Care Partnership director Michael Kellet said: “The ongoing challenges we face have left us with no other option but to extend the contingency measures to ensure patient safety.
“We have taken and will continue to take every step available to us to try and resume services.”
This included an advertising drive to recruit nursing and GP staff and trying to encourage the workforce to support the service.
During the last three months, an average of 11 people had used the overnight service at the Vic with around eight home visits.
Paying tribute to staff in the primary care emergency service “for the on-going commitment to the people of Fife during this period of uncertainty and change”, he added: “Fife, like many other areas of Scotland, is experiencing the impact of national shortages of key staff in this area.
“In response we have put in place the contingency measures to ensure a safe and reliable service.
“In addition, we must look at solutions to secure safe and sustainable services in the immediate and long term.
“This requires transformation of traditional health and social care ways of working and service models.”
The Joining Up Care consultation will be launched on Monday July 2.
Through the consultation the authorities say they want to hear the widest range of voices possible from across Fife, adding the partnership is open to hearing ideas and suggestions as to how sustainable services can be developed at local and Fife-wide levels.
