A raft of problems affecting health services in North Lanarkshire have been exposed in recent reports.
The authority area has a higher rate of vacant GP posts than the Scottish average.
A report to the health and social care partnership states: “In North Lanarkshire there are a number of practices that are under considerable pressure. The Primary Care Team respond to practices in difficulty and offer support and advice where possible.
“Options available include temporary closure of practice lists to reduce growth in patient numbers, advice on ways of working within the practice, temporary support from board employed clinical staff or under certain strict criteria, financial support, where practices have incurred additional costs to sustain basic services.”
This overall staffing shortage is having a noticeable impact on out of hours services where one in five GP shifts currently goes unstaffed.
One fifth of the rota was also intended to be covered by advanced nurse practicioners but only around seven per cent actually is, due to “very challenging” recruitment and retention of suitably qualified staff.
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Tom Bryce, NHS Lanarkshire locality general manager, said: “There are currently challenges nationally and locally with the provision of GP and nurses to work in out of hours (OOH) services.
“In Lanarkshire we are working to address these issues by actively trying to recruit GP, Advanced Nurse Practitioner (ANP) and Nurse Practitioner (NP) posts within the OOH service.
“I would like to stress that as well as GP cover, the OOHs Hub includes other specialist staff such as advanced nurse practitioners and nurse practitioners who, like GPs, are able to see, assess and treat patients as well as issue prescriptions. The Hub also includes paediatric nurses, community psychiatric nurses and clinical support workers.
“NHS 24 triages calls and passes on any cases that require an OOH appointment to the Hamilton hub; patients can visit www.nhsinform.scot and/or NHS 24 on 111 to ensure they access appropriate care.”
