Readers' Letters: Tory vow to deliver 1,000 GPs in four years unrealistic

An article in The Scotsman yesterday (9 February) states that the Conservatives will deliver 1,000 more GPs for Scotland’s NHS in four years.

Leader of the Scottish Conservatives Douglas Ross makes a speech unveiling plans to deliver 1,000 more GPs (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

It takes five years at university, two years as a foundation junior doctor, then three or four years as a trainee GP to produce a basic qualified GP.

When I was working as a GP we trained young GPs and they were of a very high standard, but still needed many years of experience to become what I would call consultant grade experienced fully independent GPs. It is now the case that more than 50 per cent of entrants to medical school and GP training are women. After training many will not wish to work full time. Some will move abroad or develop portfolio careers within the NHS. Many will become assistants or locums and not join the full-time workforce. Gone are the days of GPs working long hours with excessive on-call and part-time working to engender better work/life balance, and a family life is now the norm. Quite rightly so.

So to provide 1,000 new full-time equivalent GPs you will probably need to train 2,000.This will never happen within the timescale suggested. Capping the number of Scottish applicants to medical school does not help. When I retired not long ago as a full-time GP no one was interested in joining our practice as full-time replacement. This will not change and if you ask any GP they will tell you that the profession has been saying this for at least the last 20 years. So much for workforce planning.

(Dr) Gordon Scott, Edinburgh

Talent lack

It is a sure sign of the dearth of ability and talent in the parliamentary SNP at Holyrood that Humza Yousaf is obliged to recycle Fiona Hyslop and Christina McKelvie one more time. He cannot stand the thought of offering Kate Forbes or Fergus Ewing, two rare SNP MSPs who have shown both intelligence and backbone, a place in his administration, and might have feared that they would in any case spurn his offer of poisoned chalices.

Ms Hyslop is a veteran of the Salmond governments since 2007 but was eventually dispensed with by Nicola Sturgeon in 2021, only to be recalled to office last year by Mr Yousaf. Ms McKelvie has served in Holyrood committee and junior ministerial roles.

Can we expect Ms McKelvie, in her new role as Minister for Drugs and Alcohol Policy, succeeding Elena Whitham, to be more visible than she was as Minister for Older People and Equalities from June 2018 until March 2023 during the pandemic? Surely the fate of older people in hospitals and care homes was such a major issue that one might have expected contributions from her? As it was, she was MIA – missing in action.

Jill Stephenson, Edinburgh

Data doubt

Michael Matheson resigns days before the Corporate Body’s report into his £11,000 data charge for using his iPad overseas is published, but he has not yet seen the report.

Aye, right!

Brian Barbour, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland

Advice wanted?

Nationalist minister Mairi McAllan informed us in Holyrood recently that “more often than not, world leaders are seeking advice from this SNP administration”. I think the reaction of most to that claim was a wry smile and a shake of the head. Was she really expecting a statement like that to be accepted? Could she and her colleagues, perhaps existing in some make-believe world, really have convinced themselves that this was true?

Of course, someone made a Freedom of Information request. And of course, no trace could be found of these “world leaders" lining up for advice from this SNP-Green administration; the very idea is preposterous. In fact, the FOI request revealed that the only recorded contact with any kind of world leader was a letter sent by the FM to the President of Zambia.

Were it not so pathetic, it would be funny.

Alexander McKay, Edinburgh

Slim pickings

Will it not be fascinating to compare the pledges that Sir Keir Starmer will make at the next election to those pledges he made during the Labour leadership election in 2020? In just four years, his proposed General Election manifesto will have lost leadership pledges such as a Green New Deal, higher tax rates for top earners, the nationalisation of rail, mail, water and energy and the scrapping of tuition fees. The Labour manifesto will offer slim pickings indeed.

Richard Allison, Edinburgh

No courage

Labour lacks the courage to defend its Green Energy Pledge to the hilt and show vision, purpose and leadership. Abandoning the pledge is a disastrous and backward step.

The pledge makes economic sense, too – revitalising the green economy, putting the UK in a world-leading position in climate technologies and solutions. Instead, Labour constantly looks over its shoulders, terrified of a voter-losing backlash.

What is stifling British politics is the lack of clear direction and courage. This is what will inspire voters.

Trevor Rigg, Edinburgh

Streets of insanity

I concur with Scotsman correspondents regarding the recent announcements and ludicrous voting by Edinburgh City Council for the insane plans to close down streets in the city.

It is a nonsense – according to statistics taken in the town hotspots, pollution is down, probably since the buses changed fuels and the excellent bus lanes were introduced. This was a pain for drivers at the time but we accepted change.

What we cannot do is accept madcap changes to try to reach stupid attainment levels made up by councils .

Trams are a huge waste of money when our fabulous bus service does every route so well (excluding the 45 weekend service). The trams engineering has caused so much pollution over the decades, and the expense of the subsequent enquiry is outrageous.

Buses can go everywhere, they can turn, if they break down they can be moved – we don’t need to make any more destructive tram routes anywhere. When trams break down we are in gridlock.

The new plans for closing streets when the city centres are dying in front of the council’s eyes are crazy, and just show that this council just cares about tourists, around 2,000 cyclists and foreign students with its plans – there are no average folk who can cycle our hilly city.

Meanwhile, bike lanes inhibit private dwellers’ access to homes and there is no concern for businesses, service industries, delivery folk and – most of all – the normal working people of Edinburgh.

Edinburgh is one of the smallest capitals in the world and our pollution output so low that the billions we are wasting on egotistical projects by certain councillors, who should climb the volcanic Arthur’s Seat and take a look over the mess they have created below for the money makers of the city, are unnecessary.

David Gordon, Merchiston, Edinburgh

Lycra louts

With regard to Joseph Coulson's plea for cycle paths (Letters, 8 February), perhaps he overlooks that cyclists don't, in general, want them.While I think most cyclists (myself sometimes included) are reasonable human beings, there are an intrusive number of Bradley Wiggins wannabes who tar the cycling community with their own black brush.

Take today, for instance. Having decided to travel from West Lothian to Musselburgh by train and bus, I was delighted to arrive at my destination stress-free, and in about the same time as a car journey. Not so, the return...The bus back into town was held up constantly by a phalanx of wannabees in Lycra' which remained three-abreast all the way in front of the bus on the main arterial route into town. It was a clear “two-fingers” to the bus driver and all other traffic.I missed my train.

So much for connected-up transport thinking!

Iain Masterton, Kirknewton, West Lothian

Memory check

I have a strong recollection that when I was a teenager in the early 1950s someone in authority stated that the next World War would start in the Middle East.

I remember thinking this was nonsense. I was aware that at the time the Israelis and surrounding Arab states were at each others’ throats – they'd had a war in 1948 – but at the time that statement was made the Middle East in general didn't seem to be of sufficient importance to warrant it. Recent events there have made me wonder.

I would be interested to know if anyone else of my generation remembers reading or hearing on the radio that remarkably prescient comment and, if so, who it was who made it

D Mason, Penicuik, Midlothian

Wobbling world

Scotsman reader Malcolm Parkin wondered if “our planet's shifting axis around the Sun could be a contributor' to climate change (Letters, 8 February). The axis of the Earth's rotation moves only very slowly. It cannot affect climate in the short term.

However, planets’ movements are not completely regular due to gravitational effects. The Earth's almost elliptical orbit changes over thousands of years in a way that affects our climate, particularly glaciation.

In fact, if it were not for man-made global warming, Earth would be heading into a colder period with increased glaciation.

Steuart Campbell, Edinburgh

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