This week's Community Column is written by Maurice Corry, a Conservative MSP for the West of Scotland region and a resident of Helensburgh.

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Over the past few weeks, I have attended public meetings and spoken with concerned residents who, like myself, are worried at the thought of losing our GP out of hours service at the Vale of Leven Hospital.

Closures, threats of closures and cut backs at the Vale are something we are sadly becoming accustomed to. However when primary health care services, which are vital, come under fire, the community must pull together to stand against it - as was shown at the recent public meeting in Helensburgh Parish Church.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde Health Board have been trying to ensure cover for the GP out of hours service at the Vale; however, this has proved difficult.

Funding restrictions are the main cause of the difficulty - however it’s not necessarily due to a lack of funds.

Health boards throughout the country compete with each other for GPs to fill out-of-hours services. This pushes the cost of the service massively up, leaving staffing shortages in certain areas.

GP out-of-hours is a valuable service which allows people access to a GP throughout the day without facing the difficulty of travelling long distances.

It has already been pointed out in the Advertiser that surely it makes sense to have one GP travel to the Vale than have 15,000 patients travel to Paisley.

I think this is an important point and highlights the importance of retaining and securing the services at the Vale of Leven Hospital.

A long term solution to this service needs to be found. I would suggest, however, that it’s not a simple case of 'more money', as that won’t stop this issue arising again.

We need to ensure that the position of health boards is not being influenced by financial pressures due to other health boards being able to offer better rates of pay to cover these services.

GP out-of-hours is a primary service that should be run as such - to cap costs and to guarantee the stability and security of the service for the future.