A growing number of GP practices in Scotland’s largest city have suspended some routine services to focus on acute care, as the local medical council says opening on Saturdays is not the answer to the unprecedented pressures faced by its members.

Health Secretary Humza Yousaf announced this week that guidance has been issued to all health boards making it clear they can take necessary steps to protect critical and life-saving care.

Addressing a press conference on Monday, the First Minister said that the government is working to support health boards to maximise primary care capacity, where she highlighted NHS Lanarkshire initiative to open GP practices on Saturdays.

However, a clinical director from Glasgow local medical council (LMC), representing 237 GP practices across the city, says Lanarkshire has offered this enhanced service at this time of year since before the pandemic – and that it is unlikely to offer a solution to unprecedented pressures faced in Glasgow.

Dr John Ip told healthandcare.scot:

“Over the last few years, well before COVID-19, some practices in NHS Lanarkshire were offering this local enhanced service to practices, usually in January, to open on Saturday morning to deal with phone queries. I’m not sure what the uptake is, but it’s not 100% – practices often don’t have capacity to do these additional hours.

“Glasgow hasn’t, in the past few years, supported this type of service. This year, we don’t see any reason why we should change that position. We know that GPs and practice staff are extremely busy during core hours. I don’t think there’s widespread support for practices to open on a Saturday morning, with practices having to be staffed by GPs and admin staff. Glasgow LMC wouldn’t support this.”

As many as half a dozen GP practices in Glasgow have already been forced to suspend some core services, with some branch surgeries closed as staff are redeployed to support other health centres, in response to mounting pressure.

Many more practices currently sit at a lower level of escalation, which sees them forced to reprioritise care based on clinical need – meaning that people looking for routine appointments, or to be seen for less urgent matters, will have to wait longer.

Dr John Ip says Glasgow LMC has written to local MSPs so they can hear, directly from those on the front-line, of the ramifications of these pressures – including growing numbers of reports of abuse faced by practice staff:

“[In these escalated GP practices] there is very much a focus on acute care, with those with highest clinical priority. This has a knock-on effect, with routine call and recall ability to see people with more chronic conditions and more long-term conditions, needing to wait longer to be seen.

“The letter to MSPs highlights that we’ve had increasing numbers of reports from practice staff of abuse they’ve been getting on the telephone and sometimes even face to face from angry patients, who are frustrated that they can’t access GP services as quickly as they could before.”

Dr John Ip says the LMC wants additional resources to be put into core hours to support current workloads of GPs and practice staff, and for extra support for other front-line staff at the ‘front door’ of health services, like ambulance staff and A&E.

Dr Ip highlights the challenges GPs currently face, like the rest of the healthcare system, but that they still strive every day to deliver the highest standard of care:

“I want the public to understand that GP practices are working extremely hard at the moment, like the rest of the NHS, and that we – and the whole of the practice team – are trying our best to provide a good and safe level of service.”

Read more: New discharge to care homes programme; ‘Collaboration’ focus of updated care home oversight; Scottish COVID-19 Inquiry core participants revealed; Recognising home care workers

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