East Kilbride GP
First days as GP in East Kilbride
I moved to East Kilbride in 1959 to join Dr John McLaren and Dr David Mullen’s Practice at 5 Hunter Street, in East Kilbride Village.
There was a lot of competition in those days and there were five other practices in the village with about 20 doctors in total - although all the practices in East Kilbride were always co-operative.
Our surgery was very small, with a front reception/waiting room, where all the record were kept, and two consultation rooms.
One of the things I liked about our practice was we always kept good records of our patients.
That was not necessarily the norm. In many places they did not keep any at all as there would be no clerical assistants and the GP would just rely on his memory to remember a patient’s history.
Appointments
Of course, there were no appointments in the early days and everyone would be guaranteed to be seen by a doctor when they came.
Sometimes it meant people would have to wait for a long time, and we would occasionally be working from 8am to 10pm, but it would mean if someone needed to see a doctor that day they could.
Football games or Bank Holiday Mondays meant we would be very busy and would have numerous call-outs during the night.
There were a lot of farms in East Kilbride as well so there was a lot of travelling involved and we would visit patients from as far out as Cambuslang and Strathaven.
One of the biggest changes for GPs in the 60 years of the NHS came in 1967.
The then Minister for Health, Kenneth Robinson, brought in funding for administration staff and for premises.
That made a huge difference to the quality of health for local practices.
This new GP contract greatly improved conditions and meant we could employ clerical workers and we started to make appointments for patients to see us.