Primary Care is generally the first point of contact with the NHS (except for A&E) for most people in Scotland when they need to access healthcare. This includes contact with many community-based services and healthcare professionals as well as also a number of non-clinical roles such as practice receptionists and managers and community links workers.
BSHAA chief executive Prof David Welbourn said: “BSHAA works actively to ensure that our members’ voices are heard at a national level. The current consultation in Scotland includes important policy questions such as the role of GPs as ‘gatekeepers’. While at the moment there is less opportunity for private audiology practices in Scotland to provide care for the NHS, we would like to see this happen. General practice, pharmacy and optician services are all provided in primary care by independent practitioners, so why shouldn’t audiologists take their rightful place as peers in primary care?”
Full details of the inquiry and the first stage of the consultation process are available on the Scottish Parliament website. The deadline for responses is 30 April 2019.