Labour’s Health Secretary Alan Johnson has underlined the Labour Governments commitment to continue improving family doctor services and tackling long –standing inequalities in GP provisions with a £105 million investment.
Twelve new GP practices will be set up in some of the more poorly served areas in England. A consultation will also shortly be launched with the BMA on a proposed £105 million investment in existing GP practices to further expand clinical services and to improve access for patients.
The new practices will increase family doctor capacity in places that need it most and will offer a range of innovative services such as extended opening hours and an increased choice of GP practices for patients.
Labour’s Health Secretary Alan Johnson said:
"There has been some recent scaremongering about the future of GP practices. Today's announcement shows we are not only committed to Britain's excellent family doctor system, but also to expanding it, encouraging GPs to provide more services, closer to where people live, so they don't have to make so many unnecessary trips to hospital.
"Improving access to primary care is also a key priority if we are to deliver more personalised care that meets the needs of individuals and communities, especially those in more disadvantaged or deprived areas.
"This is not just about building extra primary care capacity but developing high-quality, responsive services with a strong focus on prevention. This is a great opportunity for entrepreneurial GPs as well as social enterprises, voluntary organisations and the independent sector to develop innovative services for patients."
Meanwhile, the Tories have pledged to end the deal on GP evening and weekend opening hours which Labour has agreed with doctors. In an interview with Pulse magazine, Tory health spokesman Andrew Lansley said the Tories would scrap the Labour government's current target of having half of all GP practices offering extended hours within the next three years.
Alan Johnson said:
"Hard working families with busy lives would be hardest hit by the Tories scrapping Labour's plans to get more GPs offering extended opening hours. Andrew Lansley is trying to ingratiate himself with certain elements of the profession rather than working to improve access for the public.
"The Tories are more interested in telling GPs what they want to hear than making sure the public get the GP access they want.
"While Labour in Government is working hard to make sure everyone can get access to a GP when they need it, the Tories are showing how out of touch they are on the NHS."
He tells me that the Governments intention is to set up 'Polyclinics'.
On R4's Today programme Ara Darzi, a colorectal surgeon who has been raised to the peerage and made an undersecretary of state for health, stated that if a majority didn't want a
polyclinic in their area they didn't have to have one. My GP friend tells me that was a complete lie, as he has seen the directive from the government to the Primary care Trust, telling them that they WILL set up a polyclinic and receive bids etc etc.
A couple of links may be of interest:....... http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/29/nhs.health and ..... http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/mar/11/nhs.health ... Would anybody care to comment?
The plans for polyclinics across the UK are already well advanced. And although the Government has promised entrepreneurial GPs will get 'a level playing field' in the tendering process for the new clinics, leading companies are confident they will easily out-muscle GP practices.
Polyclinics might be a solution for some communities, but particularly in rural areas access to a doctor could become a nightmare.Enormous, distant health centres with vast numbers of staff and doctors are the antithesis of personalised care.Professor Martin Roland of Manchester, who carried out an analysis of 30 demonstration sites that are being used to pave the way for the changes, rightly concluded that the current model of GP practices provided more choice and better access than polyclinics.He believes that while standards could vary widely, overall they were judged to provide better care than polyclinics.Additionally,the concept of Polyclinics totally ignores the needs of Public health so vital to maintain and promote the health of the nation rather than spending resources on the illness only.One could appeal to the good sense of Alan Johnson to once again carefully examine the merits of restructuring and replacing the Traditional General Practice model with failed model of Polyclinics elsewhere in Rastren Europe/North America.
the local NHS must ensure the opportunity to bid for these services is made
available on an equal and fair basis to existing GPs alongside commercial and other providers mentioned by the Alan Johnson. The GPs been the backbone of the NHS and in my view should be encouraged to expand their services.