PROPOSALS have been put forward to change the patient catchment area for North Berwick Medical Centre.

The practice has requested permission to alter its boundaries, with East Linton and Gullane to be dropped from the catchment area.

A letter submitted to North Berwick Community Council said: “North Berwick Group Practice has requested permission to alter their practice boundary. The current practice area is ‘North Berwick, Gullane, Drem, East Fortune, Whitekirk (including Lochhouses Farm) and area enclosed by those places (north boundary being the Firth of Forth)'.”

Under the proposals being put to NHS Lothian, the new boundary would be “from the Firth of Forth along the west side of Archerfield Village to the A198, then by Queenstonbank and the B1345 to Drem, B1343 and B1347 to Congalton Mains, then NE by Rockville, Caperstane and Balgone Barns, and east by Gleghomie to the Firth of Forth at Scougall”.

That would mean that no new patients from Gullane or East Linton would be permitted to join the North Berwick practice.

However, the practice has confirmed it will continue to see existing patients from outside the new boundary.

A spokesperson for the medical practice said: “At this point we do have doctors sharing the same room and when they work on the same days, this puts pressure on both patients and staff and is far from ideal.

"We are very concerned about how we can meet the needs of the increasing population that is forecast for the town in the next 5-10 years. We do not wish to scaremonger or upset any of our patients but nonetheless we feel that up to 1,500-2,000 new patients are likely to join the practice over the next 10 years as a result of the building proposals that have already received permission. It would be remiss of us all to fail to make appropriate arrangements to accommodate these patients in the practice."

Thecommunity council says it hopes that the changes will ease the pressure on the town’s medical practice.