CLARITY will be sought by community councillors about procurement of GP providers for the Moffat and Lockerbie practices next week.
Representatives from NHS Dumfries and Galloway will attend the meeting at the Moffat Town Hall next Tuesday to discuss the next steps in securing a GP provider for the Moffat and Lockerbie surgeries, following the Alba Medical Group’s resignation from its contract in early December.
Community councillors from both towns want details about how the process to choose the new GP providers will be different to ensure more reliable and sustainable service for the communities.
Posters about the meeting have been placed in Moffat and shared online to encourage residents to come along to hear more information.
Moffat and District Community Council (MDCC) chairman Liam O’Neill said: “I’ve been putting up posters in every place I can think of to advertise this meeting. I would encourage as many people as possible to come to Tuesday’s meeting because this is something that impacts everyone in the town.
“We as a community council want to ensure our community’s involvement in the procurement process and we want to get as much information out to the public as we can. But mostly we want clarity on how the community can be involved so that we don’t end up in a situation like the one we had with Alba.”
A similar meeting was held in Lockerbie before Christmas but some were left unimpressed by the level of information shared.
Fellow Moffat community councillor Mick Barker attended the meeting in Lockerbie and has set out a clear plan for Tuesday’s meeting, he said: “We have sent out an agenda to the NHS team and we hope they are prepared to be more open about the procurement process.
“We want this meeting to have a structure so that there’s an opportunity for the NHS team to introduce themselves and tell us about their roles in the process of securing a new GP service for the town and also have questions from the public so they can be just as informed as the community council.
“But it’s important that we focus on the future and not dwell too much on what went wrong with the Alba Medical Group.”
At Lockerbie’s community council meeting with NHS officials, deputy medical director Dr Grecy Bell said: “It has been very unfortunate that despite the efforts of many people in Lockerbie that work in the practice, the contract with Alba has not worked in the end, and we recognise that.
“We recognise from the feedback that things were not working, so where we are at the moment is we are trying to move forward with the procurement pro- cess and reconcile what we hear, see and read into a service that is going to work for Lockerbie and Moffat.”
NHS Dumfries and Galloway say they have now began advertising for a new contractor to come in and run the GP practices, which have 9800 patients.
And they promised they are taking steps to ensure a similar situation doesn’t happen again.
The meeting NHS officials will be held at the Moffat Town Hall on Tuesday, January 10 from 7 pm.
NHS Dumfries and Galloway were contacted for comment.
