PHONE lines to GP surgeries serving an entire Scottish island have been disconnected for days leaving staff afraid vulnerable patients have been unable to make contact.
Doctors for Arran Medical Group, which has six surgeries across the island, arrived on Tuesday to find their entire patient phone service was down.
Patients who tried calling to make appointments or order repeat prescriptions using the usual number have been unable to get through since then.
Ruth Betley, practice manager, said she had made multiple phone calls to BT but more than two days after the problem began it had still not been resolved.
She said: "It is so frustrating. I feel like I am dealing with this big massive bureaucracy that just shoves you from department to department.
"I am obviously anxious that patients cannot get hold of us. It is just really, really worrying that they can just turn off the phone and not even tell us."
The staff have managed to resurrect an old phone number which connects to one practice and put this information on social media and their website.
GP Dr David Hogg said: "Our main concern is more vulnerable patients who do not use these mediums will have no access to the practice. There has been no offer of trying to put a message on the line. It is just a continuous tone. It is quite concerning if more elderly patients are trying to get through."
He said there had been situations where the doctors had wanted to speak to hospital staff on the mainland to urgently refer patients or contact doctors in one of their other surgeries to discuss patient issues.
He said health board NHS Ayrshire and Arran had been supportive and the island hospital had noticed an increase in people ringing them about medical problems.
Arran Medical Group, which serves a population in excess of 5000, is due to switch to a new telecommunications provider next week. However, Ms Betley said the telephone engineer who was sent to the island could not tell her if this was the issue. She said: "It is just a nightmare. I cannot believe they can just disconnect a GP surgery without any discussion whatsoever."
A BT spokesman said: “The medical practice is in the process of moving to a new service provider, which is not BT. Typically, the new provider is responsible for arranging for their old service to be stopped and their new one to be started via Openreach. While we are still investigating the full circumstances in this case, we are doing what we can to help out and are trying to get the line reactivated so we can provide service until their new provider takes over."
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