A stable future is promised for the West Kilbride doctors surgery following this week's takeover by the Three Towns Medical Practice after winning the contract for its services.

The health centre in the village has been directly managed by NHS Ayrshire and Arran in recent years.

Eddie Fraser, Director of Ayrshire Health and Social Care Partnership said: "NHS Ayrshire & Arran and our partners in the Health and Social Care Partnerships are committed to ensuring that people have access to high quality local health services.

"Workforce planning, including recruitment and retention of General Practitioners, is a national issue and has been a key driver in the new General Medical Services contract to promote stability in our GP practices.

"As with the whole of Scotland, Ayrshire and Arran has experienced these challenges in recruiting GPs. This has led to a small number of independent practices withdrawing from providing services, with NHS Ayrshire & Arran stepping in to ensure continuity of service by directly managing practices.

"The West Kilbride Medical Practice has been directly managed by NHS Ayrshire & Arran for some time and we recently advertised for tender as a general practitioner business.

"We are delighted to confirm that the Three Towns Medical Practice, who are already established in North Ayrshire, has been awarded this contract and has a provisional start date of 1 August.

This provides the best, stable environment for the patients of West Kilbride Medical Practice."

It is good news for the West Kilbride practice after a turbulent few years which saw all the GPs quit the surgery as of February 2017.

Local doctors and advanced health practitioners have been based at the surgery ever since.

The Three Towns Practice, which is based in Stevenston, will now take over the running of the health centre in West Kilbride.