Many practices in Scotland have closed their lists to new patients as the service faces a “sustainability crisis”, GP leaders have warned.

A new analysis of the state of general practice in the country shows a 10% reduction in the number of practices in the last decade – with numbers falling to 905. The British Medical Association analysis found that eight practices plan to relinquish their contracts this year. 9% of practices have closed their lists to new patients. This has been accompanied by a “rocketing” of list sizes – with numbers increasing by 8% in the Lothian region in the last five years. In ten years, the average number of patients per full time doctor post has increased from 1,499 to 1,687.

Dr Andrew Buist, chair of the BMA Scottish GP committee, met Scottish health secretary Michael Matheson yesterday to set out the findings. He said the country’s problem was a shortage of funding to pay for doctors – rather than a shortage of doctors themselves.

He said: “These are extremely worrying trends and the data on the dashboard indicates that nowhere is safe or sustainable for general practice currently. The only area we are seeing a decrease in the average number of patients per whole time equivalent GP is Orkney – everywhere else is reporting increasing patient numbers with fewer GPs and fewer practices overall. It is simply unsustainable, and we are seeing that now in the numbers of GP practices which have closed their lists to patients over the past few years because they would be unable to safely provide the level of care required if they continued to take on new patients.”

He added: “Most GP practices certainly have the workload and demand for an extra GP (or more) – but the trouble is that funding has not been provided to pay for additional GPs. Worryingly, I predict that without the additional resources to fund extra GPs, the whole time equivalent numbers will continue to slowly decline. I am desperately worried for the future of general practice in Scotland.”