A £40 million funding boost for family doctors has been announced on the same day that a petition signed by 21,000 people calling for GPs to be given a greater share of NHS funding was handed over to the Scottish Government.
Health Secretary Alex Neil said the new primary care development fund would help doctors adapt services to meet challenges presented by an aging population and pay for initiatives in remote communities where GPs face extra barriers in delivering care.
The cash injection comes days after the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) Scotland said a crisis in primary care meant patients were being put at risk. It said a survey commissioned by the organisation showed more than a quarter were unable to get an appointment within a week and three-quarters feel there were too few family doctors.
While the Scottish Government has increased funding year-on-year for GP services, the proportion of the total NHS budget allocated to primary care fell to 7.5 per cent in 2012-13, lower than at any point in a decade.
The RCGP, which has called for GPs to be allocated 11 per cent of the NHS budget, has said proposed funding for family doctors in 2015-16 will amount to a 2.2 per cent cut in real terms.
However, the organisation welcomed news of the new cash pot, as a petition it organised was handed into the office of First Minister Alex Salmond.
Mr Neil, speaking at Holyrood, said the additional cash would help doctors develop initiatives that address workload challenges, tackle health inequalities in deprived and rural areas and meet the "changing needs of the people of Scotland".
The health secretary also said he backed proposals for more patients to be dealt with by nurses and other health care workers rather than doctors, in a move that would see the Scottish health service mirror an overhaul of GP services in the remote American state of Alaska.
"I have been impressed by the Nuka model in Alaska, where they have completely redesigned GP services," he said. "They recognised only about 30 per cent of the people who saw GPs needed to see them and the remaining 70 per cent would be better dealt with by a clinical psychologist, a podiatrist, an advanced nurse practitioner or whoever.
"Therefore, over the past few years, they redesigned their primary care services and, as a result, they have dramatically reduced the number of incidents and the level of people going into hospital and got a much more efficient system than they had before.
"We can learn a lot of lessons from the Nuka system. We have successfully run a pilot scheme in Fife and a GP practice in Edinburgh will adopt the model."
The Scottish Government said yesterday the number of GPs had increased 5.7 per cent under the current administration.
However, Liberal Democrat MSP Jim Hume said the workforce had effectively increased by the equivalent of just 35 doctors between 2009 and 2013, as a result of more working part-time hours. He added it would take "much more than a one-off £40m sum" to improve services.
Dr John Gillies, RCGP Scotland chairman, said: "RCGP Scotland is delighted the Cabinet Secretary is listening to our patients, to our members and to the public and has announced a new £40m fund for primary care.
"Mr Neil is right to say extra funding is necessary to play our vital roles and to deal with the 'particular challenges' for general practice that he acknowledged on Sunday.
"This welcome investment must be the beginning of steady, positive change in general practice resourcing that eventually brings our percentage share of NHS spending in Scotland to a sustainable level."
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