Public meeting on St Andrews Hospital out-of-hours closure

The out-of-hours service is closed between midnight-8am.

MSP Willie Rennie is hosting a meeting in St Andrews Town Hall on May 14, beginning at 7.30pm, where residents will be able to put their questions to local GPs as well as the Fife Health and Social Care Partnership.

Mr Rennie said: “Recently many constituents have told me their concerns regarding accessing primary care.

“We’ve known for many months about the shortage of GPs across Scotland, but sadly there’s been insufficient improvement for recruitment or retention. Many surgeries in Fife have a full list of patients. So the primary care system was already under intense pressure before staff shortages led to out-of-hours closures of primary care services.

“It’s expected that these emergency services will remain shut at night-time until July. This reduction in service is an urgent matter that I want to see resolved as quickly as possible.

“Residents are rightly concerned about accessing healthcare and want to be kept informed of what is being done to bring us back to a full service.”

The decision to closure the out-of-hours service at three Fife hospitals between 12-8am due to staff shortages was announced at the beginning of April. The contingency measure will be in place for three months.