Greenock's new £20m health centre is facing a major GP crisis

A long-serving doctor has lifted the lid on the huge pressure facing practices within the state-of-the-art facility - which is now down to less than 20 doctors.

Glen Sykes has told how the number has plunged in recent years, with the situation set to deteriorate.

Dr Sykes, who described the situation as 'woeful', told the Telegraph that a national shortage of GPs has made it difficult to attract new recruits to the centre, which only opened last year.

He says the lack of resources is far removed from the one he encountered entering practice 33 years ago.

Dr Sykes, 60, said: "I arrived as a GP in Greenock in 1989.

"At that time Greenock Health Centre had 45 GPs and produced five new GPs each year.

"It claimed to be the biggest health centre in Europe.

"I worked beside GPs in their 70s and in general terms when a job was advertised it was snapped up quickly and getting a GP job was both difficult and satisfying.

"Today we are in a new shiny health centre, however, we now have less than 20 GPs."

The family GP revealed that the staffing crisis is set to get worse over the next 12 months.

He said: "We are losing another four early next year, with two going to Canada.

"There are now no new GPs training in the health centre, compared with the five annually when I first arrived.

"I am now the oldest GP in Inverclyde and filling GP jobs is nigh on impossible.

"We have been advertising for over two years without any response."

Dr Sykes decided to speak out after the Tele reported on the case of 84-year-old Ivy Siegfried, who was a patient at his Cochrane Practice.

She nearly died following a battle with coronavirus but then met difficulty trying to get an appointment with the surgery.

Ivy was struck off after speaking out in public about the lack of access to a doctor and hit out at her treatment.

While Dr Sykes admitted her concerns about access to appointments were 'valid' he defended the practice's handling of the case.

The practice say the patient-doctor relationship had 'irretrievably broken down'.

Dr Sykes believes the current staffing situation must be taken into account when it comes to patients encountering difficulty seeing their GP - and he says that turning the situation around will be a long-term task.

He said: "This situation perhaps gives some insight into the reasons behind the difficulty in accessing appointments.

"The current government is taking steps to increase medical training, which is far too late in my opinion, but it takes 10 years from medical school entrance to finishing GP training.

"And even then there is no guarantee young doctors won’t go to Australia or Canada."

Inverclyde MSP Stuart McMillan says even before the pandemic the area was struggling to find GPs.

He said: “It’s difficult to pinpoint what all the reasons behind this are, but we know that attracting people to live and work in Inverclyde is a decades-long challenge.

"However, NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde have reassured me that they’re taking action to improve recruitment locally, attending regular job fairs and setting up ‘meet the team’ days so potential recruits can meet their colleagues and get a feel for working locally."

The MSP says 95 per cent of medical trainee posts nationally for 2023 have been filled and that while the government has launched a new campaign to being more GPs to Scotland, immigration laws are reserved.

He said: "If we were independent, we could design a visa system that reflects our country’s employment needs and entice more healthcare professionals to come and work here.

“I’m in regular dialogue with local GP practices, Inverclyde HSCP and the health board because I know how important local GP provision is.

"The only way it can be resolved is by recruiting more staff, and painting Inverclyde as a challenging or difficult place to work goes against those efforts.”