General Practitioners in Glasgow have experienced setbacks while trying to contact the city's hospitals after a latest centralised phone system was installed, it has appeared.

The GPs body, Glasgow Local Medical Committee, said that in a few cases, phones had gone unreturned for almost 20 minutes.

It stated the new installation as nothing more than a nuisance but not a crisis.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde said its new call centre had to experience an unexpected technical problem but this had been taken care of on Monday.

The health panel has been amalgamating local switchboards for hospitals throughout the city into a new facility in Hillington.

Dr. Alan McDevitt, Secretary of Glasgow Local Medical Committee said that he had information regarding some GPs facing problem getting through to hospices, in order to discuss patient admissions.

He said that there was no information given regarding the new system that was going to be in place but if there had not been any trouble, then, probably no one would have known about the faulty system that was placed.

In a few cases, there were local arrangements, for example special lines for admissions and it appears that they stopped functioning over the preceding few weeks.