A leading rural GP has quit a Scottish Government body after claiming that doctors' concerns over practice funding are not being dealt with.
Dr David Hogg, vice chair of the Rural GP Association of Scotland (RGPAS), also warned that a survey of its members found that 82 per cent believe the prospects for rural general practice are worse under Scotland's new GP contract.
Dr Hogg voiced his concerns as he resigned from the Scottish Government's Rural Short Life Working Group (SLWG), which was set up in 2018 following heavy criticism of the impact the new contract's funding formula would have on rural family doctors.
Read more: Warning 'majority' of GPs will pocket £10k windfall as salary - as rural GPs miss out
The Herald previously revealed that the contract's new Scottish Workload Allocation Formula (SWAF) would see around 68 per cent of GP partners in Scotland receiving an average boost in income of £10,200 per year, which they could choose to invest in their practices, pocket as salary, or a combination of both.
However, these increases were concentrated in urban Scotland, and disproportionately in more affluent middle-class areas with higher elderly populations.
The vast majority of rural GPs and some working in the most deprived practices in Scotland got no uplift at all, prompting warnings that the new contract would exacerbate recruitment and retention problems in GP surgeries already struggling with staff shortages.
Writing to Professor Sir Lewis Ritchie, who was appointed by the Scottish Government to chair the SLWG, Dr Hogg said this was a "pivotal time" for the future of rural practice in Scotland.
He said: "The concerns of the RGPAS Committee and our members have been well documented since the new GP contract was first proposed.
"The promise of an effective SLWG to address these concerns, and specifically, to find ways to ensure that the contract could be implemented successfully to rural communities, seems to have fallen by the wayside."
He went on to say that he had become "increasingly despondent about us seeing any pragmatic, realistic proposals to reverse the damaging effects of the new GP contract in rural Scotland", adding:"The SLWG terms are also constrained in being unable to tackle some core challenges relating to the new contract: particularly the disparity of resource allocation via the new SWAF."
Dr Hogg revealed that 82% of RGPAS members “believe that the outlook for rural healthcare is worse under the contract”, with a third saying services in those areas will have to be “curtailed” as a result.
It comes after a new initiative was launched to encourage recently retired and part-time medics to take on short-term posts to help bolster staffing levels in remote and rural Scotland.
Scottish Conservative shadow health secretary Miles Briggs said: “Nicola Sturgeon seems to think her GP contract was a rip-roaring success. In fact, it’s failing the bulk of Scotland’s land mass and a fifth of our population.
“GPs are now feeling so strongly about this they are having to step back from positions just to focus on their everyday work.
“It’s just the latest example of the SNP obsessing about the Central Belt and paying next to no heed to rural Scotland.”
A spokesman for the Scottish Government said: “We are aware that the Rural Group Chair, Sir Lewis Ritchie, has written to Dr Hogg thanking him for his participation in the group. We share Sir Lewis’s view that the group has been enriched by his participation.
“GPs in remote and rural communities provide vital and committed healthcare services to their patients, in often challenging circumstances.
“We value the views and contributions of rural GPs, and the Rural Working Group will continue to engage with RGPAS as it continues this important work.”
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