MID Scotland and Fife MSP Alex Rowley has called for a joint campaign to help save overnight out of hours services in Dunfermline.

NHS Fife announced earlier this month that it was stopping the service for three months due to nursing and medical staff shortages.

The drastic contingency action was implemented by Fife Health and Social Care Partnership after they admitted to being unable to cover all overnight shifts, which they said could compromise patient safety.

It means that, although out-of-hours operations will run from 6pm-midnight Monday to Friday and from 8am until midnight on weekends and public holidays as normal at Queen Margaret, they will only be provided at Kirkcaldy’s Victoria Hospital between midnight and 8am.

With units in Glenrothes and St Andrews also affected, Mr Rowley attended a meeting organised by a Glenrothes community organisation on Monday.

“I spoke at the Glenrothes meeting and made the point that it is important that all three hospital campaigns stand together,” he said.

“This was supported by the meeting and the group in Glenrothes are hoping to link up with people in the Dunfermline and West Fife area.”

Mr Rowley has tabled a question which he expects the health secretary to respond to in Parliament on Thursday and will also be attending a meeting between NHS Fife, MSPs and MPs tomorrow (Friday) morning when he will raise the issue.

“NHS Fife must start to accept some responsibility given they and Fife Council have joint responsibility for the Health and Social Care Partnership,” he added.

“Likewise, the Scottish Government must intervene given they are responsible for Health in Scotland.”

John Winton, of Dunfermline health watchdog Local Health Concern, said: “When the same thing happened in Glenrothes in 2012, politicians from the parties got involved and the health board members managed to stop it.

“They must realise they are vulnerable and we were waiting with apprehension for them to come and do it again.

"This is supposed to be temporary but we suspect that they will continue with this.

"The numbers who use the out-of-hours are small and they have said that doctors will come to people who cannot get to Kirkcaldy.

"They talk about a lack of doctors, that seems to be a problem, but there also seems to be a savings thing here.

"The board are strapped for cash and we’ve also seen that with the likes of the closure of Rosyth Resource Centre.

“It all comes down to a shortage of staff and money. My concern is that if you have to get a taxi to Kirkcaldy, there’s a danger people could put off going to hospital and it might be something serious.

“I was hoping that our two MSPs, Shirley-Anne Somerville and Annabelle Ewing, would shout more about it but they obviously don’t want to criticise their own health boards and say they are doing a bad job.

"If things get worse though, we will start to get more agitated. However, the councillors and MSPs are the ones that should be making a fuss.”

When the overnight closure was announced, Dunfermline MSP Shirley-Anne Somerville described the measure as “extremely concerning” and demanded that the contingency measures “must be reversed as soon as possible” and action be taken to resolve the staffing problems.