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Welcome to Hospital Hill Surgery

If you require urgent medical attention please call 999 or 111 for the Out of Hours Service when the surgery is closed. Please call the surgery on 01383 731721at 8am to arrange any GP appointments, your request will be triaged by a clinician on the day. Please be prepared to give the receptionist a brief description of your problem so it can be dealt with by the most appropriate healthcare professional. You must be available to take either a telephone call or come into the surgery on the day you call. Once the surgery has reached maximum capacity you may be asked to call back the next day at 8am. Hospital Hill Surgery is not an emergency service.

FIFE LOCAL MEDICAL COMMITTEE STATEMENT

Why are your GP practices now unable to do everything they once were?

General Practice across the Country has been struggling for years.  However it has now reached a critical situation with less money, less doctors and less staff to meet the growing needs of the Scottish population. So how did we get here?

In 2017, the Scottish Government recognised this and promised to introduce a new Contract, starting in 2018 and to be fully implemented within 3 years. At the time, the then Health Secretary Shona Robison MSP said “We equally recognised the fundamental challenges faced by general practice, not least growing workload and increasing risk”.

Unfortunately, for the first time in the history of the NHS, large parts of this contract have not been implemented. Even worse, when Health Boards haven’t been able to spend the money that they were given to employ additional pharmacists and other professionals to support General Practice, the money has had to be returned to Scottish Government rather than being able to be spent supporting your local practice.

Scottish Government promised transitional payments to Practices to recognise the non-delivery of this contract, but then withdrew that funding, even after some practices had already used the money for additional cover.

There have been many further challenges both local and National since then:

Many Practices in Fife are facing increasing bills for their building costs such as mortgages, rent payments and utility bills. Without any additional funding coming into practices, their financial situations will deteriorate and it’s likely this will lead to reduced staffing, with fewer appointments and longer waits to be seen

All Practices in Fife are impacted by Scottish Government not funding an increase in compulsory pension contributions. This is only occurring in General Practice in Scotland; the English and Welsh Governments have already committed to paying this, and there is funding in place for all staff in hospitals. Therefore, these payments come out of the funding available to Practices to pay for administrative staff, nurses and doctors.

Many people don’t know that the funding for Practices comes through a National formula and doesn’t reflect how many times patients are seen. Practices are paid the same whether you are seen once or a hundred times per year. In 2017, the Scottish Government recognised that it wasn’t sufficient and promised to move towards a new funding model. This still hasn’t happened, and the funding uplifts have been substantially below inflation since then.

The average patient used to contact their Practice 3-4 times per year. This has increased to 6-7. The reasons for this are multiple and include an increasing elderly population, more people with illness (often multiple) and more available treatment options. The large growth in waiting lists has also had a big impact, with GP appointments being taken up with ongoing management whilst awaiting hospital investigations and procedures.

GPs are in demand. There are many roles and jobs that require the skills of a GP, so the GP that you see in your practice will likely be working “full time” hours across fewer, longer days with other days spent in these other roles or undertaking caring responsibilities for their families.

Part of the funding which comes from Government every year is earmarked for non-GP staff pay rises e.g. receptionists, nursing staff, practice managers. This has always matched what was given to staff working elsewhere in the NHS. For the first time last year, the Scottish Government decided to break this link, meaning practices had to fund the shortfall or risk losing staff.

The number of GPs in Scotland is falling. As part of the 2017 contract the Scottish Government promised that numbers would rise by 800, however when doctors in training are excluded from the figures, the numbers are actually reducing! Since 2013, the GP WTE (whole time equivalent) workforce has fallen by 5.35% – a fall of 196.7 whole time equivalent GPs. In that same time period, the number of practices has fallen by 9%, average practice list sizes have increased by 18% and the total patient population has increased by 7%.  42% of practices in Scotland report at least one GP vacancy. The number of GP partners has reduced by 14% between 2012 and 2022. In the last 20 years the ratio of GPs to hospital consultants has halved, despite many things which used to be done in hospital now commonly being done in practice, and this reflects the falling share of the NHS budget spent in General Practice.

In many areas, Practice buildings are too small and are outdated. Unfortunately, Scottish Government has now cancelled all funding for new builds, leaving many working out of buildings no longer fit for purpose. Scottish Government has also withdrawn sustainability loans, a scheme to reduce the risk for GPs who own their building. This leads to financial loss which again impacts on the services they can deliver.

With less staff and more work, better IT would help improve efficiency. Our IT is cumbersome and unreliable which often impacts on the care of our patients, increasing inefficiency and damaging staff morale. We are the only country in Britain still using paper prescriptions – this alone costs a huge amount of clinical, administrative and patient time.

In order to make systems better we need time to learn and develop. We used to receive regular half days to work with our teams on making practices better for everyone. The support for this was withdrawn by NHS24 and Scottish Government have done very little to reintroduce any form of reliable support, although our local health board have tried to reintroduce this recently.

Incredibly, despite all that we have just described, your Practice remains absolutely committed to provide the best service that it can.

However, if you’re not satisfied with the service you receive, look beyond the Practice and instead hold those with the power to improve matters to account. Scottish Government needs to do more to directly support General Practice, the bedrock of the NHS.  Please contact your MSP.  Their contact details can be found at Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) | Scottish Parliament Website

Fife LMC – June 2024

What is NHS Pharmacy First Scotland?

  • NHS Pharmacy First Scotland is an NHS service provided by your local community pharmacy (a pharmacy with a contract to provide NHS prescriptions and services)
  • If you have a minor illness, a pharmacy is the first place you should go for advice.
  • You do not usually need an appointment and you can go to any pharmacy.
  • Your pharmacist can give you advice for a minor illness, and medicine if they think you need it.

News & Announcements

Alert

THE SURGERY WILL BE CLOSED FOR TRAINING ON THURSDAY 7TH NOVEMBER FROM 1-6PM FOR TRAINING.

IF YOUR CONDITION IS LIFE THREATENING PLEASE CALL 999.

IF YOUR REQUIRE URGENT CARE BETWEEN THESE HOURS PLEASE CALL 01592 729250. AFTER 6PM, PLEASE CALL NHS 24 ON 111.

WE WILL RE-OPEN THE FOLLOWING MORNING AT 8AM.

** FINDING IT HARD TO GET AN APPOINTMENT AT THE SURGERY?**

DURING THE MONTH OF OCTOBER THERE WAS A TOTAL OF 24.00 HOURS OF MISSED APPOINTMENTS BETWEEN ALL THE CLINICAL STAFF IN THE SURGERY. IF YOU HAVE AN APPOINTMENT AND ARE UNABLE TO ATTEND, PLEASE CONTACT THE SURGERY TO CANCEL. THANK YOU.

THE SURGERY WILL BE CLOSED ON WEDNESDAY 25TH & THURSDAY 26TH DECEMBER 2024. IF YOU REQUIRE URGENT CARE DURING THIS TIME PLEASE CALL NHS 24 ON 111 OR 999 IF YOUR CONDITION IS LIFE THREATENING.

THE SURGERY WILL RE-OPEN AT 8AM ON FRIDAY 27TH DECEMBER

THE SURGERY WILL BE CLOSED ON WEDNESDAY 1ST JANUARY & THURSDAY 2ND JANUARY 2025. IF YOU REQUIRE URGENT CARE DURING THIS TIME PLEASE CALL NHS 24 ON 111 OR 999 IF YOUR CONDITION IS LIFE THREATENING.

THE SURGERY WILL RE-OPEN AT 8AM ON FRIDAY 3RD JANUARY.

 

THANK YOU.