There are fears hospital accident and emergency departments will be unable to cope over the festive fortnight because most GP surgeries will close for eight days over the holidays.
Patients have been warned to expect long waits for treatment at hospitals because of surgeries closing over the two bank holiday weekends.
With Christmas Day and New Year’s Day falling on Thursdays, surgeries will close from Wednesday evening until Monday morning both weeks.
One health board, NHS Lanarkshire, is offering practices £350 a day to open plus 10p for every registered patient they see.
Dr Martin McKechnie, chair of the College of Emergency Medicine Scotland, said once GP out-of-hours services become fully booked patients will inevitably begin turning up at their local accident and emergency department.
“We have genuine concerns about the lack of alternative healthcare available to the population over these four-day periods,” he said.
“The reason for that is people will, as usual, vote with their feet and turn up at A&E as the only available healthcare to them.”
Dr McKechnie added: “The quality of care provided to all the patients will have the potential to be reduced because waiting and crowding in hospitals is associated with mortality.”
He also warned some patients who try not be a burden by waiting until their GP surgery re-opens may cause themselves more harm and wind up needing hospital treatment anyway.
Health boards around the rest of the country have said all GP surgeries will shut for the full four days at both Christmas and New Year.
Out-of-hours medical centres will be used and can be accessed through NHS 24, which expects to handle more than 80,000 calls over the two bank holiday weekends.
NHS 24 expects to handle more than 80,000 calls over the two festive weekends and has recruited extra nurses and call handlers.
Dr Andrew Buist, deputy chair of the British Medical Association’s Scottish GP Committee, said: “Whilst some health boards may have put extra local arrangements in place, patients across Scotland can be reassured that if clinically necessary they will be able to see a GP at all times throughout the festive season.”
A Scottish Government spokeswoman said health boards have been given a share of £8.2 million to help cope with the Christmas rush.
She said: “NHS boards have each been allocated a proportion of the funding, in addition to their local targeted funding, to put in place local solutions which will ease pressures across the winter months, including the festive period. “