Conservative plans for polyclinics and GP Practices
Posted by Robert Wilson, MP for Reading East, at 12:05, Tue 3 February 2009:
The Government says that polyclinics provide opportunities for care closer to people’s homes, rather than in hospitals, but I know that their plan to force GPs into them is proving to be very unpopular.
The Conservative Party does not support the Government’s approach to primary care and general practice. I feel that single-handed GPs and small GP practices need to network so they have access to diagnostics and are part of proper clinical governance, I don't agree with forcing GPs into big polyclinics. GPs are local, by definition, and the public need a choice of styles of GP. The Health Minister, Lord Darzi, looked at this area in his review and I have been concerned with the direction that is being taken. He seems to be saying polyclinics are the only way forward and has admitted that doctors will, effectively, be forced into them using the GP contract. It is quite wrong and I do not agree with him.
There are places where family doctor services are weak and a polyclinic could deliver better community access to services. But there are other areas where GPs are much stronger and there is no case for shutting down hundreds of local GPs' surgeries to make way for expensive polyclinics which reflect a one-size fits all political plan, rather than local needs or circumstances. Nor is there any sense in shipping out services from local district general hospitals if they are viable, successful and accessible.
GPs are senior professionals and we should not micro-manage them or dictate where they should work, as we are more concerned in the health outcomes for patients rather than the processes used to get there. My party would develop the Government’s Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) to reward clinical quality, patient satisfaction and patient-reported outcomes by giving GPs greater budgetary responsibility as commissioners of care.
Where polyclinics do occur, they should occur naturally, as the voluntary combination of free agents – not as the latest structural re-organisation of the NHS.
Full details of Conservatives’ policy on Primary Care and GP services are set out in the document; ‘Renewal, A Plan for a Better NHS’ which can be found online at www.conservatives.com.
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