A Perthshire GP surgery is being axed after five years in a “temporary” building in the middle of a field.
Letters are going out to patients of the Carse Medical Practice today, advising them it will close on September 12.
The move will leave 3,600 patients with no GP between Perth and Dundee.
It comes after the Carse Medical Practice was forced to quit its surgery in Errol in 2018.
The service moved to a base in St Madoes, but it was later declared unfit for purpose.
Since 2020, staff have been working out of a temporary building at Westley, near Errol.
NHS Tayside was pressed to come up with an urgent, and permanent, solution a year ago.
Locals warned uncertainty over the service’s future was putting it in jeopardy.
The closure will leave the Carse of Gowrie, and its 10,000 residents, with no GP cover.
The Invergowrie practice also shut its doors in 2023.
Carse Medical Centre closure ‘entirely predictable’
Local councillor, and Carse Medical Practice patient, Alasdair Bailey says he’s “absolutely horrified” by today’s announcement.
And he blames “seven years of inaction” for the current crisis.
“This situation was entirely predictable given the doctors have been stuck in that temporary building in the middle of a field because NHS Tayside will not fund a permanent building,” he said.
“I attribute the partners’ current inability to recruit to that underlying uncertainty about the practice’s future at the hands of NHS Tayside.”
Mr Bailey says he’ll host a public meeting in Errol Village Hall next Wednesday.
He has also written to First Minister and constituency MSP John Swinney, urging him to hold NHS Tayside to account for its “demonstrable failings”.
He wants Mr Swinney to press NHS Tayside to set up a directly-run medical practice for the Carse of Gowrie.
Swinney to seek urgent talks with NHS Tayside
Mr Swinney says he is deeply disappointed by today’s news and will be seeking an urgent meeting with health bosses.
“Decisions relating to the closure of practices are ultimately the responsibility of NHS Tayside,” he said.
“But this is particularly unwelcome news given the record level of funding allocated to the health board in the Scottish Government’s latest budget.
“I will be seeking an urgent meeting with senior stakeholders within NHS Tayside to discuss this matter and to press them to look again at this decision.”
NHS Tayside has responsibility to provide for Carse Medical Centre patients
The Carse Medical Centre said it did not want to comment.
But a spokesperson for NHS Tayside said: “As with many practices across Scotland, Carse Medical Practice has been affected by the national shortage of GPs.
“When a practice gives notice to stop providing services, NHS Tayside has a responsibility to ensure that safe primary care services are provided to the local population.
“NHS Tayside and Perth and Kinross Health and Social Care Partnership are working together to ensure that patients registered at Carse Medical Practice will have continued access to GP and primary care services from Friday September 12.”
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