Letter to Nicola Sturgeon, Shona Robison and NHS Lanarkshire

I am writing to you with regard to the GP crisis that is facing the NHS. As a result of the increasing demand on GP's and a shortage of practitioners, my local surgery is losing all of it's doctors and the health centre's closure is imminent. I would just like to explain that over the last 3 years, the GP's at Greenhills Medical Practice in East Kilbride have supported myself and my family following the Tunisian Terror Attack. I cannot emphasise enough the importance of having a GP who knows my history and whom I can trust, which is an extremely difficult thing for a victim who has been consistently let down by mental health and government services. My GP has been the only person who has actually provided any medical help and I am extremely upset that I am going to have to start over with a new GP. As an NHS employee, I fully understand the demands on the service. Health care staff are expected to work under extremely difficult conditions, with growing numbers of patients and less money and staff to work with. As you will be aware, there have already been practice closures in Scotland, as well as practices working with closed lists and not taking on new patients. In October 2017, NHS Lanarkshire categorised GP provision as "very high risk". They also stated “For NHS, this has already resulted in a number of practices closing their list, which has consequences for other neighbouring practices, with some alerting NHSL to say they believe their ongoing sustainability as a practice is in serious doubt.” In my 13 years of working in the NHS I have never been so stressed and demotivated. We are expected to work with limited funds and staff resulting in many clinicians working late and over breaks. This is resulting in staff burnout and is the reason why so many people are leaving the NHS and is also impacting on patient care. What is it going to take for someone to actually address this problem? The NHS is in crisis and needs direct immediate action to deal with these issues. I look forward to your response.