Regulations about rural GP closures should be tightened up to avoid the outcry caused by shutting surgeries in Hopeman and Burghead, a Scottish Government review has recommended.
Furious protest marches and petitions were organised after it was decided not to reopen the facilities following the Covid pandemic.
The blow left some residents facing a five-hour return bus trip due to the lack of a direct service for appointments in Lossiemouth.
Campaigners from Save Our Surgeries took their fight directly to the Scottish Government’s health secretary.
An independent government review has now concluded that Health and Social Care Moray went beyond the minimum requirements for consultations about the closures.
However, Evan Beswick, interim chief officer of Argyll and Bute’s health and social care partnership, has recommended rules about branch surgery closures are reviewed to provide clearer guidance and to reflect current concerns about sustaining rural GP practices.
‘Easy to see why community felt parties were in cahoots about GP closures’
Community outcry in Burghead and Hopeman about the GP surgery closures focussed on anger about how the consultation was run.
In his report, Mr Beswick explained that Health and Social Care Moray accepted Lossiemouth-based Moray Coast Medical Practice’s explanation that reopening Hopeman and Burghead would put the entire practice at risk.
However, he highlighted there was no “meaningful challenge” from the health and social care partnership about the proposals.
Mr Beswick wrote: “On one hand the commitment to seeing this problem as a shared and collaborative one is commendable and I understand the position has emerged through extensive discussion.
“On the other, it is easy to see how this could give rise to community members feeling the parties were, as one person put it, ‘in cahoots’.
“This particular situation is more complex in that the practice did not have a written contractual obligation to provide the branch surgeries.”
He added: “My feeling is that this lack of explicitness around the sustainability challenge may reasonably have driven the feeling of community stakeholders that the outcome was a ‘done deal’, despite Health and Social Care Moray’s genuine desire to work with communities to seek the best outcome.”
Could Burghead GP surgery still be saved?
The Hopeman GP surgery building was sold last year. The Burghead practice building was only leased by Moray Coast Medical Practice and remains vacant.
Further recommendations from Mr Beswick has urged Health and Social Care Moray to continue talks about “innovative proposals” for the building.
Initial talks have already been held with Glasgow School of Art’s Forres campus to find ways to retain access to health services in rural communities.
Mr Beswick has recommended talks continue, believing solutions could provide a solution for the rest of the country to tackle the sustainability of rural services.
He added: “As one community member expressed, we cannot accept the decline of rural services, but must seize opportunities for innovation where they present. It seems apparent that there is real potential for just that in this instance.”
The recommendations will be considered by Health and Social Care Moray’s integrated joint board of Moray Council and NHS Grampian representatives in September.
Conversation