TWO centres set to cope with the coronavirus pandemic will close after a drop in the number of people attending them.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde said their Community Assessment Centres in Eastwood and Kirkintilloch will shut their doors following a steady decline in the number of Covid-19 cases.

The move comes as some centres have seen just a handful of attendances per day in the last week, with numbers continuing to fall across sites. They can be rapidly remobilised should they be required.

Eastwood and Kirkintilloch Health centres will meanwhile continue to provide a range of services.

Moving forward, the Covid-19 service will be run from Barr Street in Glasgow, Greenock Health Centre, Linwood Health Centre, Renton Integrated Healthy Living Centre and Clydebank Health Centre.

Patients within East Renfrewshire and East Dunbartonshire will be asked to attend their nearest centre.

The health board’s patient transport service will take patients to and from their appointments, if required.

The centres were set up at the beginning of the pandemic to provide a streamlined pathway for patients who had COVID-19 symptoms to ensure they received the most appropriate care as quickly as possible.

The seven specialist centres played a central role in effectively cohorting patients and protecting other primary and acute care services from being overwhelmed as well as the safety of patients and staff.

To date more than 5,500 patients have been through the centres.

Dr Jim O’Neil, lead clinician at Barr Street Community Assessment Centre in Glasgow, said: “It’s great news to be able to wind down two of our CACs as it means community transmission is reducing across Greater Glasgow and Clyde in line with the rest of Scotland. Staff who had been redeployed to the CACs can move back into other roles as we adapt into a recovery phase to allow us to scale back up services which have been impacted by the pandemic.

“The CACs were designed to serve a short-life span and have been very effective in helping treat people with COVID-19 symptoms throughout the pandemic. However, numbers have been steadily declining and in line with planning, services have been reduced to meet falling demand.

“We have retained a full service across other sites and we will continue to review the situation on a daily basis to inform and allow us to scale back up, if required.

“We’d like to thank all the staff involved in helping mobilise and run the CACs so effectively and in such a short space of time.”