In the Ailing Scotsman today, Jackie Baillie turns up to lie about walk-in clinics.
The facts:
From the Scottish Government 26 August 2026:
First Minister John Swinney has announced 24 more areas will benefit from new GP-led walk-in services across Scotland, bringing the number of centres planned or operational to 40.
Work is underway with health boards to establish new walk-in services for communities including Angus, Dumbarton, East Kilbride, East Renfrewshire, Edinburgh, Falkirk, Glasgow, Inverness, North Ayrshire, Paisley, Shotts, Tweeddale and West Lothian. Many will be able to open within a year.
Proposals are also in development for walk-in services in communities in Ayr, East Dunbartonshire, Glasgow, Glasgow North East, Glenrothes, Grangemouth, Inverclyde, Musselburgh, North Lanarkshire and Oban.
It comes as First Minister John Swinney marked the official opening of the 11th GP walk-in service in Buckhaven in Fife and announced an extension of the pilot programme until April 2029.
The GP walk-in pilot is testing new ways of accessing same-day care from GPs, Advanced Nurse Practitioners or other clinicians at a wider range of times. They have been designed to provide more choice for patients while helping to relieve pressure on wider NHS services. https://www.gov.scot/news/new-gp-walk-in-services-announced/
We’ve already seen the wrong-headed opposition to this pilot:
BBC Scotland, Aimee Stanton, 28 july 2026, claimed, despite revealing the above graph in their own report:
GP walk-in clinics see low attendance leading to accusations of failure – A series of walk-in GP clinics which the Scottish government said would end the “8am rush” for appointments have seen low attendance rates, first figures show.
and:
Dr Iain Morrison, chairman of the BMA’s Scottish GPs committee, said doctors had expressed reservations about the walk-in clinics when they were first announced – and it now looked like a case of “I told you so”. He told BBC Radio Scotland Breakfast (RSB): “In terms of any pilot it’s important to learn to fail fast.
“My concern is that we’re not going to learn to close this down when all the evidence suggests that it’s not working.
“It’s going to continue to be worked upon, potentially expanded, despite evidence crying out that it’s not having the impact that’s desired.”
He said it would appear the scheme was more about politics rather than practicality. Morrison said ministers should have learned lessons from a similar scheme introduced in England nearly 20 years ago which, he said, had failed to relieve pressure on other NHS services.
Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crmrk48zd9ro
There is so much wrong in the above, so uneducated, so self-centred, so greedy.
First, a reasonable science-based length for a pilot this kind to be meaningful would be at least 12 months and preferably 24 or 36 months after the initial ‘ramp-up period.’ We are still in the ramp-up period with only 10 of the 16 planned centres so far open. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10354383/
Second, learning from the English scheme has limits given the increasingly diverging NHS systems in England and Scotland but, in addition, it is important not to accept the BMA Scotland’s review of the evidence, selected only to back-up their prior views and, shamefully ignoring the work of Professor Chris Salisbury of the University of Bristol who gold-standard research revealed critical positive findings.
Improved access for certain groups: Centres clearly improved access, particularly for young and middle-aged men (historically lower users of traditional general practice) and people seeking care for recent-onset minor illnesses/injuries. Users often attended on the first day of symptoms for reasons of convenience, speed, and no need for an appointment.
High patient satisfaction: Users were generally more satisfied with walk-in centres than with general practice consultations (e.g., adjusted differences of around 6–7 percentage points in satisfaction scores). Care was viewed as high-quality and appropriate by both patients and staff in many assessments. Waiting times were often short and consultation times longer than typical GP appointments.
Safe, appropriate care for minor issues: Quality of care was at least comparable to general practice for the problems presented; most users felt the attendance was appropriate. https://www.bristol.ac.uk/media-library/sites/primaryhealthcare/migrated/documents/wiceval.pdf
Later patient surveys of GP-led walk-in centres similarly found high satisfaction (86–93% highly or fairly satisfied) and that centres increased access to GP-type care, with many attending because of difficulty seeing their own GP (working hours, closed surgery, or preference for no appointment). https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3637583/
There’s a simple message here for BMA Scotland and BBC Scotland – shut-up, wait and try to be ready to report accurately and fairly on behalf of the citizens and taxpayers you owe for your comfortable employment.
Footnote: Aimee Stanton’s portfolio seems to be mostly about events in Whakatāne, New Zealand, perhaps explaining her lack of knowledge of GP walk-in clinics? https://muckrack.com/aimee-stanton/articles
Might BBC Scotland employ someone competent?
As of 26 August, the Scottish Government stated that more than 10,500 walk-in cases had been seen, in only 11 centres, in the first six months since the first service opened in February.https://www.gov.scot/news/new-gp-walk-in-services-announced/
Judging by the end-June line graph, that’s a more than 100% surge in attendance.
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