The Herald today has:
Doctors have told the SNP to drop its plans to expand walk-in GP clinics after new figures showed patients waited up to six hours to be seen at the first facility in Scotland.
The clinic at Wester Hailes Healthy Living Centre in Edinburgh, opened in February and was the first of around 30 walk-in clinics promised by the Scottish Government, currently led by the SNP.
and
So, another combined effort by Scottish BMA and the Herald to undermine the top party leader, John Swinney and the SNP.
Are they stupid? Don’t they know this?
Early reporting (including the article you shared) tends to focus on initial queues or teething problems, but health-service pilots usually need months or even years to judge properly. There are a few reasons:
Early demand spikes are normal
New services often attract pent-up demand (“novelty effect”). People who previously couldn’t get appointments all turn up at once, which inflates waiting times initially.
Staffing and processes take time to settle
Walk-in systems need triage protocols, staffing rotas, and patient-flow adjustments. Early inefficiencies are expected.
Evaluation should look at system-wide effects
The key question isn’t just “how long did people wait in this clinic?” but:
Did it reduce pressure on GP practices?
Did it divert patients from A&E?
Did outcomes improve?
There’s also a broader policy point: NHS performance data historically shows that targets and early metrics can distort behaviour or give partial pictures if judged too quickly, especially in complex systems.
When did this centre open? 11 February 2026, less than three months ago.
And perhaps exposing the Herald’s agenda, a separate report on the same programme, in the Times, found:
Average wait ~38 minutes at one flagship site
Around 1,600 patients treated:
Finally, Dr Al Miles, a ‘top medic‘ or just second to a shop steward? Really ‘top medics‘ are leading large cutting edge research or teaching teams in university hospitals.
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The ‘top medic’ is hoping that NHS Scotland will, to quote Aneurin Bevan, ‘stuff his mouth with money’.
Despite the ‘caring’ image that medical trade unions like BMA and RCN like to present the officers are pretty grasping and not averse to blackmailing the public with threats of reduced service to put pressure on the government to pay them more.
A disproportionately high number of doctors were educated in private schools and many send their children to such schools. It is part of the ‘status’ which many such people feel is their right.
I am not saying that such attitudes are typical of doctors. I knew many medical students when I was at university and most were decent, sincerely caring people. As a teacher in the public sector, I taught the children of many doctors. I have had no complaints about the many GPs I have encountered, bar one, and I am old enough to pre date the founding of the NHS. I have always been satisfied by treatment I have had from A&E.
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