FRUSTRATION bubbled over in Moffat after it was revealed no bids were submitted to take on the running of the town’s GP surgery.
NHS Dumfries and Galloway issued a statement on Tuesday stating that only the Lockerbie practice has received bids from providers and will be moving forward to the next stage of the procurement process.
Although there had initially been expressions of interest in Moffat, nothing formal had developed.
Moffat and District Community Council (MDCC) shared the news with residents at their monthly meeting on Tuesday, sparking much disappointment.
And it led some present to wonder if, of the two, Lockerbie was seen as more attractive due to its large modern premises.
Meanwhile, NHS Dumfries and Galloway are now making arrangements to bring the Moffat surgery under direct control of the health board until a new provider can be found.
But deputy medical director Dr Grecy Bell said: “Ensuring services are able to continue under direct board management is not a quick or easy challenge.
“It will require looking to ensure we can enlist the services of staffing such as GPs for perhaps a limited time period until the contract can be awarded, and when there is great demand for clinicians across the whole of Scotland.
“Even as we begin to make those arrangements for Moffat, we will be looking to see what can be done around a procurement process which secures bidders for that contract, and identifying a suitable provider who can deliver these services for the wider community, which includes Wanlockhead, Leadhills and Elvanfoot.
“We will continue to work with the local communities on this, and around how our approaches can adapt to try and secure the best outcome.”
However. community members are not as optimistic as health officials.
MDCC secretary Mick Barker said: “It’s very frustrating that the mechanism has been unable to attract people to come to Moffat and its failing to attract people raises all sorts of questions about how it’s gone wrong with mechanisms that are used to generate resources for the town.
“This takes us right back to the start because the model that is in place is supposed to provide a better service. NHS Dumfries and Galloway have already admitted publicly that they are very inefficient when it comes to running a GP practice but to push us back to how it was before Alba is beyond disappointing.”
Looking forward, other community members believe that more needs to be done to attract a provider or a practitioner and MDCC chair Liam O’Neill added: “The news is a shock for us but not a surprise. There’s a need to advertise Moffat as a great place to live, the town has to be sold to attract interested persons and that should be our main focus. “We need to get someone that’s interested in coming to a small community and who once they’re here they would have all support and facilities they’d need.”
