Sturgeon Bid To End 9 To 5 GP Surgeries

The Scottish Executive is to hold talks aimed at persuading GPs to open their surgeries at evenings and weekends, it was revealed yesterday by the Scottish Health Secretary.

In her first major interview since her appointment, Nicola Sturgeon said she would be seeking discussion with doctors about offering treatment and consultations at more “user friendly” hours.

Gordon Brown, who is soon to be Prime Minister, has already indicated he intends to improve access to doctors when surgeries are typically shut. His stand is predicted to lead to clashes with the medical profession. One group of doctors has already proposed charging patients to see a GP in the evening.

The SNP manifesto says access to non-emergency healthcare is still based around office hours and they will work with the NHS to improve this situation.

Speaking to The Herald yesterday, Ms Sturgeon said: “We do want to make the health service more flexible. It is frustrating for people not to be able to go to their GP outside working hours or on Saturday morning.

“But I am not a big fan of the Gordon Brown approach. If we try to work with GPs to bring about whatever changes to deliver that flexibility, that is a better way to proceed rather than use the big stick approach.”

She confirmed she would be seeking discussions about how to improve the health service “in terms of its user friendliness and its availability to people”.

NHS staff will have the chance to question Ms Sturgeon about her plans today after she gives her first major speech since taking office. She is due to address a conference for NHS Scotland staff at Glasgow’s Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre.

The new Health Secretary is expected to announce that nurses and other health service workers will receive their promised 2.5% pay rise next month. Staff were told they would receive this settlement before the election but payment was delayed while talks continued with administration and ancillary staff.

Ms Sturgeon will also signal her commitment to tackling the poor health and life expectancy experienced by Scotland’s poorest communities. Her speech follows the publication of a report from the Federation of Small Business that said Scotland is the worst performing small country in Western Europe in a large part because of health factors.

Junior doctors from pressure group Remedy Scotland, set up following the fiasco with the new system for allocating doctors specialist training posts, are also due to meet Ms Sturgeon this week.

She said officials in Scotland had been in close contact with junior doctors about the problems and added: “I’m determined we remain flexible and open to any suggestions they make.”

Westminster led the introduction of a new computer based applications system for junior doctors. System crashes caused delays as candidates tried to apply for different medical fields. Then consultants threatened to boycott interviews they were due to conduct because they had no confidence the right people had been shortlisted.

Ms Sturgeon said: “We will be looking closely at this experience and if there is an argument for Scotland going more its own way in future in terms of selection. That is an argument I will be very open to.”

She also said the current set-up where candidates apply to one body covering the whole of Scotland, rather than targeting their applications at specific regions, needed to be looked at.