PRESTONPANS Health Centre is busier then ever but is coping with the demand for its services, practice manager Elaine Horne has told community councillors.

Mrs Horne visited Prestonpans Community Council, after reports of lengthy health centre waiting times were debated at a previous meeting, and offered reassurances that the centre was meeting patients’ needs.

But she admitted that, with an ever-increasing population in Prestonpans, the health centre was under pressure and needed to find a way to expand.

She said: “We are looking to expand the current site but that will not happen until 2016.” Patient numbers at the centre have risen by 15 per cent over the last six years, she confirmed.

It has seven GPs – but just two of those work full-time – and had, she said, “just shy” of 9,000 registered patients.

One of its other GPs worked 75 per cent of full-time hours while the other four worked approximately 62 per cent of full-time hours.

To not be overwhelmed by patient numbers, the practice did not accept new patients from outwith the local area.

Mrs Horne revealed there were plans for the health centre to become a GP training practice.

Training qualified doctors to become GPs would “help the situation”, she added.

She told community councillors that the practice worked hard to ensure that no patient waited more than a week for an appointment and offered both on-the-day appointments and phone consultations.

And she appealed for people to join the practice’s Patient Participation Group, to provide a wide spectrum of the community’s views.

Mrs Horne said: “I would really value more people on the group, as we want to listen to the voices of people in Prestonpans.” Councillor Willie Innes, East Lothian Council leader, said that the establishment later this year of East Lothian Joint Integration Board, which will see NHS Lothian and the council working together to provide health and social care services, would help with planning issues.

He said: “When it comes to planning, developers will only fund identified impacts on communities and the health board needs to provide that information.

“The new joint integration board will make that happen in the future.”