PATIENTS should expect much longer waits to see a GP as the Scottish Government considers the service "dispensable," a top doctor has warned.

In an unprecedented, stinging attack Dr Miles Mack, chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners (Scotland), has accused ministers and the civil service of having a deliberate strategy to "erode or end the current role of the GP in family life".

Hitting out at what the college sees as a complete failure to adequately fund GP-care, Dr Mack said patients should know what lies ahead and "have every right to worry".

He said: "When they or their loved ones must already wait over three weeks for an appointment with their GP they should know why and they should realise that the situation is about to get much, much worse."

His comments follow analysis by the college of the latest Scottish Government budget announcement which, they say, increases GP funding by 1.9 per cent in real terms while health boards (which run hospitals and other community health services) are receiving an uplift of 3.8%.

It also comes at a time when some GP practices have folded because they could not recruit enough doctors. Junior medics are increasingly shunning the profession with a fifth of training places for general practice in Scotland left unfilled last summer.

RCGP Scotland warned in the autumn that reducing the portion of the health budget allocated to GPs could be seen as deliberately reducing the service. They feel it sends out a message which will make it even less attractive as a career option.

Dr Mack said: “It is now clear that the Scottish Government’s true vision is one in which the public should expect to get by without GPs as their prime provider of care."

Shona Robison, Scottish Health Secretary, has responded to his comments saying: “The Scottish Government is committed to supporting and enhancing primary (community) care and the work of GPs. To say the service is dispensable or that services are being eroded is wrong."

She pointed to the creation of a new £45m Primary Care Fund, saying it equates to an investment increase for primary care of over six per cent.

However, Dr Mack questioned the value of a number of recent Scottish Government pledges concerning GP care and dismissed ministerial statements issued to reassure doctors and the public as "hollow".

He said: “When the Primary Care Fund was announced in June of last year we said that a much larger response was required. That fund, spread over three years, is dwarfed by the size of the problem and has yet to be evidenced to frontline GPs."

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced 100 extra training places for GPs in October, but Dr Mack said there was no indication how the Scottish Government intended to fill these slots.

He continued: “We are told of trials of ‘new models of care’ with absolutely no detail offered and no progress reported."

Summing-up, Dr Mack added: “The Scottish Government should be clear and open with the public. There appears to be a set strategy to erode or end the current role of the GP in family life, to be replaced with something we as yet do not know and that the public is wholly unaware of... . It appears that the Scottish Government views general practice as dispensable.”

Dr Alan McDevitt, chair of Scottish GP Committee of the British Medical Association, said the severe workload pressures have created major recruitment and retention problems which must be addressed if general practice is to survive.

He went on to outline a number of ways in which the BMA is working with the Scottish Government. These include negotiating a new GP contract and securing changes to allow family doctors to better look after their patients.

Ms Robison said: “Funding for GP services has increased each year under this government, rising from £704.61 million in 2007/08 to £852.57 million in 2014/15."

She added that Scotland had the highest number of GPs per head of population of the four UK countries and continued: "In December, Scotland became the first country in the UK to agree to completely abolish the existing bureaucratic and burdensome GP payments system, freeing up GPs to spend more time with patients – a decision first announced at the RCGP conference in October, which was strongly welcomed by the RCGP."

More money has also been invested in other vital community health services such as health visiting and the ambulance service, she said.