The Riverside Medical Practice in Musselburgh has announced the arrival of a new permanent GP at its Musselburgh surgery.

Dr Jeff Scott, who has been working at the practice for the last year during his final year of his specialist GP training, will now join the medical team on a permanent basis.

Dr Richard Fairclough, GP partner, said: “As a training practice, many of our GPs dedicate time to supporting Scotland’s GPs of the future. This is such valuable work, especially at this time when GPs nationally are in short supply.

“It’s always great news when a GP decides to come and work in any community but this is especially the case when a doctor who has come to train with us then joins the team on a long-term basis.

“This really speaks volumes about the strong team we’ve built here at Riverside, who all work so hard together each and every day to provide high quality care to the people of Musselburgh.”

Dr Cameron Kennedy also now joins the practice for his third and final year of specialist GP training.

Two of the Riverside’s specialist practitioners have successfully gained their independent prescribing qualifications. The specialist paramedic and nurse practitioner both attended Queen Margaret University before getting the award which means they will now be able to prescribe certain types of medications to patients.

Dr Fairclough said: “This means that as well as assessing patients they will now be able to prescribe appropriate medication to treat certain conditions which will be of great benefit to patients and to our GP team too.”

The practice, which currently has 50 members of staff who work full-time and part-time, is based at East Lothian Primary Care Centre and is the largest practice in East Lothian and one of the biggest in Scotland, with about 19,000 patients. The team has recently been working with an external review team commissioned by the East Lothian Health & Social Care Partnership. It is looking at whether there are ways that patient need for primary care services in the town can be better met.

Dr Fairclough said: “We feel there have been some improvements in access and appointment provision recently, thanks to our successful recruitment over the past 18 months and a gradual reduction in Covid impacting our staffing levels.

“At our busiest times we know it’s still harder to get through to us on the phone and to book an appointment than either we or our patients would like. That’s something we’re working to improve as much as possible on an ongoing basis – as well as of course looking at any recommendations made by the review team, when they publish their report next month. We continuously strive to make improvements which mean we can provide our patients with the very best care possible.”