Fife’s under-pressure GPs are to be offered extra help to resolve staff shortages in the run-up to winter.
The announcement that more health and social care workers are to be recruited to support doctors follows serious concern of a looming GP crisis across Scotland.
More than a third of Fife’s GPs said their workload was unmanageable when surveyed last month and 42% said they would not choose to be a GP again if given the choice.
NHS Fife medical director Dr Frances Elliot said a number of measures were now being taken to enhance the support offered to general practice in the region.
“As a board, we are looking at a range of options in order to support practices and ensure that Fife patients continue to receive the best possible standard of care,” she said.
“This will look at adapting the skill mix within practices to enable the recruitment of clinical pharmacists, advance nurse practitioners and other health and social care professionals to support the existing teams.”
She added: “NHS Fife recognises the pressures that general practice is facing and is committed to working with local practices to find solutions to the workforce shortages that are being experienced in Fife as well as across the rest of the UK.”
The promise of extra support has been welcomed by Fife’s GPs.
Dr Gerald Burnett, a GP and chairman of the Fife Local Medical Committee, said: “We face escalating demand daily in the face of staff shortages and financial pressure.
“There must be a shift of resource to primary care to enable GPs to meet this demand.
“I support Dr Elliot’s focus on continued high quality of patient care which must be coupled with solutions and funding.”
In addition to recruiting extra staff, NHS Fife has made a successful bid to the Scottish Government to pilot new community physicians.
The fully trained GPs will receive a year of extra training to give them skills to work in both the community and hospitals.
Six practitioners are being recruited to a three-year programme and will start training in November in Dunfermline.
If the new model proves successful, it will be introduced to other areas of Fife.
Dr Elliot said: “This will help support practices to deliver early intervention and more preventative care for the benefit of patients and families.”