This week's Community Column is written by Jackie Baillie, MSP for Helensburgh, Lomond, the Vale of Leven and Dumbarton.

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Let me thank our local GPs for sharing their concerns about the threat to out-of-hours services at the Vale of Leven Hospital. It is not an easy decision for any clinician to speak out publicly against health board proposals, but their decision to do so makes our case for maintaining services at the Vale all the more powerful.

Hundreds of local people have turned out at public meetings to show their support for the service at the Vale. Dr Brian McLachlan from Helensburgh, and other doctors from Dumbarton and Alexandria, have spoken passionately about the need to ensure that emergency primary care services remain local and accessible.

They are rightly concerned about the health board’s lack of engagement with local GPs and the community. Nobody knows the health care needs of local patients better than our GPs but they were not even asked to share their views. In fact, the first one of them heard about the plan was on Facebook.

As it stands the proposal would see the closure of out-of-hours services at the Vale on Monday-Friday evenings. This would mean 120 extra patients on average each week travelling across to Paisley in an emergency. Local GPs estimate it would lead to more than 500,000 miles of travel annually for Helensburgh patients alone. Evening public transport to Paisley is non-existent, so anyone without access to a car, or the money for a taxi, would effectively lose access to out-of-hours services. The reality is that many people would stay at home and lives would be put at risk.

Out-of-hours provision was a key commitment in the Vision for the Vale put in place by Nicola Sturgeon as Health Secretary. Eight years on, the health board and the Scottish Government are tearing the Vale Vision to shreds - reducing clinics, cutting beds, cutting the number of nurses and now at least 12 different health board ‘reviews’ which could have a negative impact on the Vale.

We need to stick together and tell the First Minister: hands off our local health service.