LOCHGELLY Community Council announced this week that NHS Fife have finally accepted that the town's Health Centre does not meet current required standards!

Indeed it prohibits development of a more holistic approach to treatment.

Lochgelly Community Council have been campaigning since the start of the year for new Health Centre provision for the town. The body has written to Scottish Government Ministers, NHS Fife, Fife Council and held public meetings attended by Local MSP Annabelle Ewing and Councillors Mark Hood and Linda Erskine.

Stevie Murray, Community Council secretary advised on Monday: “Our basic arguments have remained consistent, Lochgelly Health Centre is simply inadequate to provide the level and types of care needed!

"If we got a new build then there would be the opportunity to provide different forms of treatment which helps people to deal with whatever problems they have".

He added: "The social prescribing care model developed within the Lochgelly Health Round Table, has been widely applauded and is being rolled out across Fife, which the Community Council instigated. "This holistic approach looks for ways of prevention as opposed to treatment of the symptoms by directing the patients to the correct specialist. But to have a health centre which is not suitable for the current needs of the town does not match up with this”

Community Councillors were invited to meet with NHS Managers at the end of June and again highlighted these problems.

Added Stevie Murray: "We expressed our frustration that they hadn’t taken steps to tackle the problems faced by the people of our town sooner.

"The Managers in attendance were sympathetic to our arguments and although they confirmed that no funding had been made available for Lochgelly they wanted to work with the Community Council.

“The last time we met, at the end of June NHS intimated that they want to work closely with the Community Council on this project. We highlighted that if we had a new facility, then there was evidence that recruiting GP’s would improve this freeing up existing GP and specialist nurse time.”

When pressed about estimated timescales, they suggested possibly 2019, if they get funding but the community council advised that this was a completely unacceptable timescale, as everyone knew that the facility in David Street was not acceptable.

The secretary concluded: "ife Council have given a commitment to providing land for a new build and the Scottish Minister has responded that if there is a need then they would support it.

“After months of campaigning, challenging the misleading information which was being spouted about available funds and other minor distractions from a couple of people opposed to our fight, it is somewhat satisfying that there has been this level of acceptance and progress.

"However, we cannot simply sit back and rest on this small, but significant announcement.

"We need everyone who uses the facilities to contact our local MSP about the desperate need for a new building and ask them to press the Health Minister for funding to be provided. We will continue to campaign until funding is secured and a more realistic timescale is provided for work commencing."