Readers’ Letters: ‘Walk-in’ provisions should be standard for all GP practices

Your “Rapid roll-out of GP walk-in clinics ‘risks worse crisis’” front page headline (Scotsman, 27 August) was certainly a lot more accessible than your average GP appointment.

Having trained in General Practice and also having spent most of my working life as an NHS consultant I have mixed feelings about these clinics. The walk-in part is good. Walk-in accessibility is surely a desirable characteristic of primary care which we would wish to encourage.

I spent a year working in a small rural GP setting and although we ran an appointment system if anyone just turned up at the surgery they were seen before that surgery ended.

The Scottish government has been warned against the rapid expansion of GP walk-in clinics (Picture: Brian Jackson, stock.adobe.com)

If patients were unable to get to the surgery they were seen in their homes. Urgency was on the basis of medical need – prioritisation on the basis of patient perseverance with telephone roulette was unheard of.

The problem with the walk-in clinics is only that patients are not actually walking in to see a trained professional who is familiar with their case in their usual primary care setting. We don’t need extra walk-in clinics divorced from standard primary care provision – we need walk-in access to the provisions which should already be in place in every GP surgery in the land.

I do gain the impression that the concept of “walk-in” is not popular with the profession. Not even Nye Bevan was able to fully address the issue of the GP lobby. The modern health foyer is certainly no easier. Access to even the foyer of a modern primary care facility clearly remains a perplexing problem which is taxing politicians. Perhaps even patients too.

Dr Steven William Welsh, Stornoway, Western Isles

Staffing issues

Your leader (Scotsman, 27 August) correctly points out several flaws in the government’s GP walk-in clinics plan. My concern is that these centres will need to be staffed by GPs and other healthcare professionals who could otherwise be working in established general practices, so reducing pressures.

Perhaps the government should ask itself why these staff do not want to work in the current set-up. I think there are two main reasons.

Firstly, many young GPs do not want to commit to permanent work in general practice due to the current workload and quality of life issues.

Secondly, in order to employ additional GPs a practice would need to earn more money in order to pay them. This is not possible unless you provide additional services or increase list size so putting more pressure on an over-stressed system. GPs are caught in a catch-22 dilemma.

Finally, if these centres are to go ahead we must ensure that they provide a big enough bang for their cost. Opening them in low population centres such as Benbecula and Invergordon, where I suspect workload is less than in a deprived area in central Glasgow, will not achieve this.

Dr Gordon Scott, Edinburgh

Rinse and repeat

John V Lloyd (Letters, 26 August) raises that age-old question of England over Scotland, this time regarding the recently commenced football league seasons both north and south of the Border.

However, he should realise that in England there is genuine competition and interest: will Arsenal retain the Premier League title?; will the Manchester clubs, both with new managers, come good?; same for Tottenham and Chelsea; and can Liverpool re-create past glories?

Here in Scotland there is no such competition. The SFA and SPFL will contrive to see that Celtic will be Premiership champions and Rangers will be runners-up. As for the rest? Well, they can fend for themselves. You see, on this side of the Border it is not so much “plus ca change” but a bit more “rinse and repeat”, so nothing to see here.

David J Mackenzie, Inverness, Highland

Saddle up

After the abject collapse of the Celtic team losing after a four-goal lead with 60 minutes to go in Austria this week, have we anywhere to go for the possibility of an early restoration of some respect to Scottish sport?

Yes. Last year Oscar Onley from Kelso, then 22, was a superb and unexpected fourth in the Tour de France.

This year he was unable to compete in the Tour due to injuries sustained in a prior race, Currently he is fifth in the Vuelta, the Spanish three-week equivalent of the Tour, just ahead of one of his main rivals for a podium place, who happens to be an Austrian, Felix Gall. Gall is an elite climber and won the recent Tour a Burgos with Oscar just behind, but Oscar finished just ahead of him in last year’s Tour. There is evidently a healthy rivalry there.

It would be good to have more media support for Oscar, particularly with the Tour coming to Edinburgh next year.

Bill MacDonald, Bonnyrigg, Midlothian

Degree of difficulty

Universities facing imminent financial collapse due to administrative bloat and reckless spending deserve absolutely no taxpayer bailouts.

For decades, these overleveraged institutions have engineered their own financial ruin, borrowing billions for luxury campus amenities while rapidly expanding highly-paid managerial bureaucracies. When domestic tuition revenue streams fell short, they adopted a predatory funding model, systematically exploiting international students as shameless corporate cash cows. Overseas scholars are charged astronomical, punitive fees simply to plug gaping institutional deficits, transforming higher education into an exploitative export commodity.

Worse still, universities continue peddling low-value, functionally worthless degrees that offer zero real-world economic utility. Naive students graduate burdened with immense debt but completely lacking any marketable skills, leaving them stranded in a punishing modern economy. This is a self-inflicted systemic failure, not a public crisis. Rewarding this gross mismanagement with state-backed rescue packages would only subsidise institutional greed and shield overpaid vice-chancellors from proper accountability.

If higher education treats itself like a ruthless commercial marketplace, it must accept market consequences. Let failing universities go bankrupt; taxpayers owe no financial lifeline to a broken, exploitative industry.

Doug Clark, Edinburgh

Online rage

Ian Johnston is right; much of what comes under the heading “social media” is anything but (Scotsman, 26 August). So it would be a start if all newspapers, journalists and other mainstream media would call the negative versions either “unsocial” or preferably “anti-social media”.

John Birkett, St Andrews, Fife

Allies alienated

The folly of the UK government, the Scottish government and the Green party is writ very large indeed.

Protection of the public is the number one task of any government. Right now, we are facing an increasingly likely attack of some description from Russia due to our stance on Ukraine. The Russians have withdrawn their UK ambassador, which is a grave sign.

At a time like this we need all the friends we can get, especially with intelligence that might help thwart any attack. However, look at what we have done. Labour, the SNP and the Greens have alienated the Trump administration. That is bad enough, but all three political parties have gone out of their way to alienate also another giant in the intelligence arena, Israel.

What actually have we gained by this? It may be very obvious shortly what we might lose. These political parties have attacked Donald Trump from day one. Israel has been vilified in a shocking miscarriage of justice with little attempt to quell the unwarranted denounciations from the left. When will we ever learn?

Gerald Edwards, Glasgow

Don’t cut aid

The UK’s decision to reduce Official Development Assistance (ODA) from 0.5 per cent to 0.3 per cent of Gross National Income raises concerns about the UK’s commitment to tackling global poverty.

At a time when conflict, hunger and climate-related disasters are affecting millions of people, reducing support for international development risks reversing decades of progress in improving lives and reducing poverty. UK aid has helped provide access to healthcare, clean water and sanitation, education and emergency support for some of the world’s most vulnerable communities. Real people depend on programmes like these, and reducing funding puts millions at risk of losing vital support.

Some argue that UK aid should be reduced to prioritising defence spending. While strengthening national security is important, the UK’s aid budget already represents a small proportion of overall public expenditure. Investing in global development can also help address the root causes of hunger, conflict, instability and disease, contributing to a safer and more secure world for everyone.

The UK has long been recognised as a leader in international development. I hope that our elected representatives will continue to support initiatives that reflect this commitment and maintain the UK’s role in tackling global poverty.

I encourage readers who share this concern to contact their MP and ask them to support the protection of ODA funding. Public engagement plays an important role in ensuring that global poverty remains a priority.

Olivia Christie, Kirkliston, Edinburgh

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