GP leaders have warned that any shake-up to out-of-hours care must be "incredibly careful" not to make a career in general practice even less attractive at a time of record vacancies.

The Scottish Government has announced plans for a review of the way health and social care services are provided over public holiday periods after the Royal College of Emergency Medicine and representatives of out-of-hours GP clinics called for an overhaul of how the system is run during public holidays to ease pressure on A&E and hospital beds.

It comes after health services including GP surgeries, social services and some hospital departments were run at a reduced level for eight days out of 11 during Christmas and New Year.

Dr Alan McDevitt, chair of the BMA’s Scottish GP Committee, said: “In the midst of severe difficulties in recruiting and retaining GPs, we need to be incredibly careful not to do anything that risks making a career as a GP less attractive and undermines efforts to ensure we have enough GPs to meet Scotland’s needs.

"Vacancy rates at GP practices are already running at around 28 per cent and we simply cannot afford that situation to get even worse."

Health Secretary Shona Robison said the review would "determine is how these [festive] closures impact on our hospitals and accident and emergency services and if better practices can be identified”.

The review is expected to consider issues such as premium payments for working public holidays and the role of pharmacists.

Changes will be in place for Christmas 2017 and potentially ready to be trialled at Easter.