The Scottish Government must bring forward "real action" to tackle the problems facing general practice (GP), Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie has said.
During exchanges at Holyrood's First Minister's Questions, Mr Rennie said the majority of doctors were not satisfied with the government's plan to combat GP shortages.
Doctors in Glasgow this week warned that surgeries could close in the city as a result of a "GP crisis".
"Can the First Minister tell me when she is going to bring real action forward to put an end to this crisis?" Mr Rennie asked.
Nicola Sturgeon said the government's primary care development fund was providing funding for practices, the testing of a digital service, the recruitment of pharmacists, a GP recruitment and retention programme, and a GP leadership programme.
"I hope that Willie Rennie would accept that that is a fairly impressive list of actions," she said.
Mr Rennie responded: "We have heard it all before. And 99% of GPs who knew about the government's plan said it was simply not enough."
Ms Sturgeon countered that the plan had been welcomed by the chair of the BMA's Scottish GP committee.
"We are shaping primary care so that it is up to meeting the challenges of the future," she said.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel