GPs volunteer to increase emergency cover (March 05, 2009)
Both Dr Main and Dr Woodall, as BASICS emergency response doctors, are pleased to have agreement from NHS Highland to fund this service to cover the whole of East Sutherland, along with colleagues in Dornoch Medical Practice.
BASICS doctors are specially trained to attend road traffic accidents and serious incidents in the community to provide life saving support when an ambulance is not available immediately. Using special satellite tracking, the Scottish Ambulance Service can request a BASICS GP response where they feel an ambulance cannot get to the patient quickly or special medical skills may be required
Dr Woodall has volunteered to increase local cover for this service on some nights and weekends where possible along with Dr Richard Brown, one of the GPs based in Dornoch. This additional emergency cover is separate to normal Out of Hours GP cover where usual arrangements operate if you need to see a GP urgently.
If a doctor is called out to an emergency during a normal surgery they may be gone for some time, and we would ask patients to acknowledge this where possible by either rescheduling routine appointments that could wait, or showing patience that events beyond normal control mean they may have to wait a considerable time.
