| That is the view of north Fife councillors Tim Brett and Maggie Taylor, who said today they would be again pressing the issue with NHS Fife and NHS Tayside, having got nowhere with a similar plea last year.
Rolled out last summer, NHS24 is the new national first point of contact when patients make an out-of-hours call to their GP’s surgery.
As residents of North East Fife, served by NHS Fife, people in the Tay bridgehead area are expected to see a doctor in St Andrews if calling after 6pm.
But Councillor Brett (Newport and Wormit), himself a former chief executive of Tayside Health Board, said it would be much more convenient, and make a lot more sense, if patients in the Newport, Wormit and Tayport areas were able to make the short trip over the Tay to see an out-of-hours doctor in Dundee.
Councillor Brett said, “I wrote to George Brechin, the chief executive of NHS Fife, last August, but never got a reply.
“Some people might prefer going to St Andrews, but this involves a 30-mile round trip. People in this part of Fife have long been able to access medical facilities in Dundee.
“The relatively small numbers of people requiring emergency treatment in hospital are already taken by ambulance to Ninewells, but it would make sense for them to be referred from a GP in Dundee at nights rather than going from north Fife to St Andrews first, then on to Dundee.”
Councillor Taylor (Tayport and Motray) added, “I would like patients to have the option of either St Andrews or Dundee.”
Councillor Brett said the local NE Fife healthcare co-operative had been speaking with the NHS boards about such action, but he understood no agreement had yet been reached.
He would be stepping up pressure with a letter again to the chief executive of NHS Fife and he would also be raising the issue with Professor Tony Wells, chief executive of NHS Tayside. |
