BMA Scotland chair calls for urgent action to address shortfall of rural GPs

Dr Iain Kennedy calls for higher pay and better facilities and training to stem vacancy crisis in remote areas

The leader of Scotland’s doctors has called for rural GPs to get higher pay and special status to cope with a critical shortfall of medics in the Highlands, islands and rural counties.

Dr Iain Kennedy, the chair of the British Medical Association in Scotland, said urgent action was needed to reverse a crisis with doctors quitting rural practices in growing numbers, which had left many remote areas dependent on locum GPs who are paid £900 a day.