The search for a new doctor to take over the GP practice on the island of Colonsay is over.
Dr Simon Willetts has been appointed to succeed the husband and wife team of Drs David Binnie and Jan Brooks, who are retiring after 10 years as the island’s GPs. Dr Willletts, who has been a partner in Greyfriars Medical Centre, Dumfries, since 2003, will take over in October.
Drs Binnie and Brooks saw the practice’s relative isolation as one of the vacancy’s key attractions – not that Dr Willetts needed to be persuaded, having spent some time practising on Colonsay as a locum GP.
He said: “I am thrilled and delighted to have the opportunity to live and work on Colonsay, tending to the health of the islanders and their guests.
“I am also aware that I have very big shoes to fill and I hope to carry on where the current GPs left off when they retire later this year.”
He added: “Clearly the first priority is to see the island and its folk safely through the Covid-19 challenge to calmer waters. I would then hope to guide the practice such that the island population can have the best mix of easy access to their doctor whilst not missing out on the advantages of an expanded healthcare team offered by the current process of redesign of primary care services in Scotland.”
Dr Rebecca Helliwell, associate medical director of Argyll and Bute Health and Social Care Partnership, said: “Dr Willetts is a very experienced GP and I am delighted that he will be providing medical services on Colonsay. It is great news for the local community and he brings a wide range of skills and knowledge which will be a real asset to the service.
“I am sure that he will embrace island life to the full.”
The Colonsay vacancy has been promoted with the support of the island’s four-person patient representative group, whose chair, Eileen Geekie, said in an earlier issue of Bulletin: “I would like to see this as a life-changing opportunity: a chance to do something completely different.”
Martine Scott, Programme Manager of the Scottish Rural Medicine Collaborative, said: “It’s hard to think of a better example than Colonsay of all that is good about remote and rural general practice. They don’t call this island the ‘Jewel of the Hebrides’ for nothing.
“The island’s current doctors will attest that practising in places like this is not without its challenges but it also provides an excellent opportunity to do interesting and rewarding work in a place where community really matters.”
Originally from Banchory in Deeside, Dr Willetts graduated from the University of Aberdeen in 1987, having previously attended the city’s Robert Gordon College.
He spent three years working in a private practice is St Helier on Jersey before moving to NHS Dumfries and Galloway, where he was clinical lead of the regional major incident team.
As well as working with the Greyfriars Medical Practice in Dumfries for 17 years he has been a GP locum in remote and rural communities throughout the north and west of Scotland, including Orkney, Caithness, the Small Isles, Skye and, of course, Colonsay.
He is a member of BASICS Scotland and a Major Incident Medical Management and Supplies (MIMMS) instructor.
The vacancy on the beautiful Inner Hebridean island – population 134 – attracted considerable media attention, not least because the practice is just about as remote as Scotland can offer. Ten miles long and two miles wide, Colonsay is a little more than two hours from Oban by ferry.
Dr Willetts is moving to a practice that covers Colonsay and the neighbouring small island of Oronsay.
Drs Binnie and Brooks will be staying on the island in their retirement. Their plans include spending more time with their grandchildren and being ‘crofters of leisure’.