GP surgeries in rural Scotland are closing at more than twice the rate of those in many Central Belt health boards, analysis by the Scottish Conservatives has revealed.
While every single health board in Scotland has fewer surgeries in 2024 than it had in 2015, official stats from Public Health Scotland show that the crisis in general practice is more acute in rural, remote and island areas.
During that nine-year window, the number of GP surgery closures per 100,000 people was 4.93 in NHS Highland, 4.03 in NHS Dumfries & Galloway, 4.09 in NHS Grampian, and 4.36 in NHS Shetland.
The situation was worse still in NHS Orkney and NHS Western Isles, where there were 17.75 and 7.51 surgery closures per 100,000 people, respectively.
In contrast, the comparable figure for NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde was 2.36, and NHS Lothian 1.86.
The Scottish Conservatives said the figures were “further proof that rural Scotland suffers the brunt of SNP failures”.
Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross said: “These figures are a damning indictment of the SNP’s mismanagement of Scotland’s entire NHS – because in every part of the country there are fewer GP surgeries now than there were a decade ago.
“But they are also further proof that rural Scotland suffers the brunt of SNP failures – because the closure rate is far higher in remote and island health boards than in Central Belt ones.
“I know that only too well from the closure of GP practices in Burghead and Hopeman in Moray.
“This SNP Government doesn’t understand or care about rural and island Scotland. We see that in the ferries scandal, the failure to upgrade vital trunk roads including the A9, A96 and A75, the woefully-inadequate R100 broadband rollout and the greater teacher shortages in rural schools.
“Far too many people in rural Scotland are waiting too long, and having to travel too far from home, to get a GP appointment due to the SNP’s failure to recruit and retain staff.
“The Scottish Conservatives have outlined plans to tackle this problem by introducing a ban on the closure of any NHS facility and recruiting 1,000 extra GPs.
“The Scottish Conservatives will always stand up for rural Scotland and in key seats across the country it’s a straight fight between us and the SNP.”
Notes
Between January 2015 and January 2024, per 100,000 people in these health boards, the following number of GP surgeries stopped existing*:
- NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde: 2.36
- NHS Lanarkshire: 4.97
- NHS Lothian: 1.86
- NHS Highland: 4.93
- NHS Grampian: 4.09
- NHS Fife: 3.47
- NHS Forth Valley: 4.25
- NHS Tayside: 1.92
- NHS Dumfries & Galloway: 4.03
- NHS Orkney: 17.75
- NHS Ayrshire & Arran: 0.81
- NHS Borders: 2.59
- NHS Shetland: 4.36
- NHS Western Isles: 7.51 (Public Health Scotland GP Practice Contact Details and List Sizes, January 2024, link).
*By ‘stopped existing’, we mean that, as of January 2024, there was no GP surgery with the same practice code as the identified GP surgery in January 2015. Going by surgery practice code rather than surgery name, the other potential option, eliminates confusion from multiple surgeries in Scotland having the same name (for example, there are multiple GP surgeries in Scotland called ‘Riverside Medical Practice’). (Public Health Scotland GP Practice Contact Details and List Sizes, January 2024, link).
The Scottish Conservatives would recruit 1,000 additional GPs and introduce a new national guarantee. We would invest 12% of the NHS budget into GP clinics to open new facilities, recruit more staff and make more appointments available, particularly in rural areas. We would also make it mandatory for practices to offer online booking systems, and introduce a national standard guaranteeing patients an appointment within a week. (Modern, Efficient, Local: A New Contract Between Scotland’s NHS and the Public. 9 February 2024, link).
The Scottish Conservatives would ban the closure of local healthcare services. The Modern, Efficient, Local policy paper reads ‘While it is not practical for all services to be offered at a local level, there needs to be a balance between specialism and accessibility. We believe that the government has got this balance wrong, particularly in rural areas. That is why we would place a ban on local healthcare service closures, while reviewing services that we can reopen to reverse years of centralisation.’ (Modern, Efficient, Local: A New Contract Between Scotland’s NHS and the Public. 9 February 2024, link).