The consultation undertaken by Fife Health and Social Care Partnership on the reorganisation of the Out of Hours services in Fife has identified a way of keeping open the service at St Andrews Community Hospital.
Dr Angela Anderson, Chair of the St Andrews Out of Hours Group, said:
“We are delighted that an option to retain the Out of Hours service at St. Andrews Community Hospital is now emerging.
It is the result of hundreds of hours of input by many volunteers, community councils and healthcare professionals across NE Fife over many months and on numerous fronts. We thank every single person who contributed to the petition, postcard campaign, emails and meetings.
We are also very grateful for the sustained cross-party support we have received, both behind the scenes and publicly in the press and in the chamber of the Scottish parliament. Everyone from our councillors, through to our MP and MSPs, most notably Willie Rennie, and right up to the Scottish Health Secretary, has helped ensure the voices of those who rely on the OOH service in St Andrews are heard.
Finally, officers at the Health and Social Care Partnership have gone to great lengths to listen to us, the service-users and the service-providers, and to work with us to find a better way forward than all-out closure.
The model we have come up still needs some work – some details require clarification, it has to be formally sanctioned by the members of the Integration Joint Board, and it will be important to monitor and review it once it is operational.”
