A former adviser to Margaret Thatcher has taken matters into his own hands and advertised for an out-of-hours GP service for his village after the local health board refused to provide one.
The village has no dedicated out-of-hours GP after the local family doctor retired and his replacement opted out of out-of-hours responsibility.
Since placing the advert, Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, of Kinloch Rannoch, Perthshire, has received several bids to provide out-of-hours GP services.
Viscount Monckton is hoping GPs will provide cover for less than the health board’s estimate of £557,000 a year. He said: “This would mean NHS Tayside will then have a legal duty to consider any tender put together.”
He added he expects the tender will be no more than £185,000 and “possibly even less than that”.
Residents have complained the care that is available is not close enough, despite NHS Tayside trying to reassure them that a range of out-of-hours care is on offer based at the Aberfeldy Community Hospital.
Viscount Monckton likened the plight of Kinloch Rannoch’s 589 residents to that faced by the inhabitants of a “small African village”.
Copyright © Press Association 2009
Your comments (terms and conditions apply):
“Good for him! It’s about time someone stood up for the rural communities. The provision of out-of-hours services is meant to cover all of us isn’t it? I guess this is one positive benefit of the commercialisation of parts of primary care” – Name and address withheld
