Improvements to support GP services across West Lothian have not made it any easier for people to get a doctors appointment, a councillor has claimed.
Community treatment and pharmacy centre improvements are being rolled out to back up local GP services.
But amid growing frustration from residents struggling to see their local doctor, a councillor has suggested GPs need to engage more with the communities they serve.
READ MORE: West Lothian fund set up to manage cuts could be used to save jobs, union claim
The issue was raised at a meeting of the local Integration Joint Board, which heard that support services were being upgraded across the county to serve the 20 GP practices as part of the latest version of the Primary Care Improvement Plan.
A meeting of the Board heard this week that the latest round of the plan was set to go before the board’s sub committee of GP’s for sign off next week before being submitted to the Scottish Government in May. The plan is funded by Holyrood.
It covers areas including pharmacy, vaccination and community treatments sites, advanced nurse practitioners and community mental health care services, all of which are designed to support GP practices.
The Primary Care Improvement contract was first introduced five years ago initially designed to alleviate some of the pressures on the GP practices and was a recognition of the volume and complexity of work in general practice and was also introduced because of concerns about the availability and sustainability of the GP workforce. The county’s GP practices remain independent businesses.
Labour councillor Andrew McGuire sits as a voting member on the Board with three other West Lothian councillors and represents the Armadale and Blackridge ward.
He described the GP service as a closed shop and said: “As an elected representative who stays in Armadale I have absolutely no say in how my GP surgery is run and I don’t think that’s probably true of any other public service.”
He cited his frustration, and that of the public in trying to get a doctor’s appointment: “I have to phone like everybody else at 8 o’clock in the morning to access treatment”.
“Is there an opportunity for consultation in the future with members of the public or a way that local independent GP practices can start to engage better with the people that they seek to represent."
He told the meeting: “I appreciate this is a very complicated area with lots of different involvement and GPs obviously being independent contractors which makes it particularly difficult. As an elected councillor the thing that people contact me most about, setting aside housing, is pressure on GP surgeries.
“When I read through this improvement plan there seems to be little to no engagement with the public, with service users I just wondered what our view is on that and would hope we ultimately engage with people using these services.
Dr Douglas McGowan said it was an issue he could independently discuss with councillor McGuire adding: “It’s something we could work together to better facilitate.”
Dr McGowan told the meeting: “I think in all honesty there hasn’t been a great deal of public engagement. The engagement has predominantly been between the HSCP and the GP practices who have been representing views of their patients.
"The point was to try and sustain GP practices which had been folding at the rate of one to two a year before this investment started.”
Board chair Bill McQueen said: “What have we missed here? We do have periodic surveys of citizens in all parts of Scotland about what they think of GP practices and on two or three individual measures we know that citizens in West Lothian rate their GP services lower than the average for Scotland as a whole.
"That’s what we know from limited info we have got. How are we to be more customer friendly in all of this- even if the end result is feeding into the committee of GPs a sense that we have obtained from the views receiving GP services.”
Officials agreed that there was no direct engagement but it was something the HSCP would want to pick up on as a “fair and valid point”.
The report said: “The 2018 contract was designed to stabilise primary care services and develop them to create a sound basis for the future.”
The key aim of the new plan is to support the ongoing development of multidisciplinary care teams in GP practice and to support the role of GPs as expert medical generalists. There was also an aim of improving patient experience and outcomes in primary care.
The roll-out of the primary care improvement plan has been a collaborative effort of the Health and Social care Partnership staff, the Health Board and GPs.
Mr McQueen suggested that GPs and officers come back to the Board with more information on what local people actually felt about GP service provision in the county.
READ NEXT:
West Lothian school cleaners drop in pay 'an outrage' as cuts hit lowest paid
West Lothian abattoir site left derelict for 20 years to be transformed into housing
Green light for huge West Lothian housing development on abandoned hospital site
West Lothian housing crisis causing 'misery and despair' after half of targets missed
West Lothian council gets £1 million to help improve insulation at private homes
