Patient is told to find new GP after 40 years on books

Published on Wednesday 14 October 2009 10:15

A WOMAN has been told she has to leave her GP practice, despite being signed up there for 40 years.

Margaret Skeldon, 62, was shocked to receive a letter from her Midlothian doctor earlier this week telling her to find somewhere else.

Bosses at the Dalhousie Medical Practice said they had to cut down the number of patients registered and, because she technically lives outwith the catchment area, she was no longer eligible.

Mrs Skeldon, who works for NHS Lothian as a domestic assistant at the Astley Ainslie Hospital in Morningside, has never moved house nor expressed a desire to leave the practice.

The Danderhall woman said: "I was really disappointed to get that letter, and was on the phone to them straight away. It's only a ten-minute drive up the road for me to get there and I've been there for 40 years. In fact, I think I've probably been going there for longer than some of the GPs in the centre have been alive."

Although she continues to work, Mrs Skeldon does have some health complaints which means she is a regular visitor at the surgery. As well as an underactive thyroid and diabetes, she has also suffered from angina.

"When you've got things like that you don't want to be changing GP. You get used to them and they get used to you," she said. "There are practices nearer me now, but I don't want to switch. Previous GPs over the years have told me that as long as I want to go there I am more than welcome."

It was recently announced that GP catchment areas in England would be scrapped within a year, to create a more free system.

But Scotland's health secretary, Nicola Sturgeon, last week told NHS Lothian's annual review that there were no such plans here.

Dalhousie Medical Practice is housed within the Bonnyrigg Health Centre, having moved there in 2005. Dr Rose Bryan, a partner at the practice said: "We value continuity of care. However, we reluctantly came to the decision that we were unable to provide safe and appropriate care to patients who reside outside our practice area.

"This decision was based on a continuing increase in our practice list size, owing to the many new housing developments in Bonnyrigg.

"We have already spoken to the practice's patients' representative in detail about this."

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