There will be an Opposition Day debate this week on the issue of Polyclinics. Presumably another opportunistic attempt by the opposition, this time coat-tailing on the BMA, to present themselves as guardians of the NHS, and fighting back-door privatisation. 

How short some memories can be.  When I was first elected in 1992, the NHS was being savaged by the then Conservative Government.  Hospitals were trying to run on virtually empty, waiting list for elective surgery were lengthening every month, waits in A&E were matching those months in hours.

We were short of doctors, nurses, you name it.  The then government couldn’t afford it, and although I have little doubt they would now deny it, the thrust in 1992 and before that, was to persuade the public that health care could best be provided by the private sector, accessed only by paying for private health insurance.

Remember Mrs. Thatcher’s rallying cry, ‘To see a doctor of my choice, at a time of my choosing’?  Somehow no-one bothered to point out that the rather high insurance premiums did not/could not cover chronic or terminal illness, geriatric diseases, nor mental health.Fortunately, 1997 saw a Labour Government being elected, so the NHS, not exactly within a day, but nonetheless, was saved.

Now the opposition are fostering the fantasy that polyclinics will bring privatisation of health services.  This is based on the winning of contracts, funded by the tax-payer and examined by the local PCT, to deliver primary health care, by in one case, an American company.

Fears have been fuelled that this will mean the disappearance of our local GP’s, (themselves all small businesses, who enter into contracts with the NHS), into some bottomless pit of corporate greed, and that polyclinics will destroy the close bond between individual doctors and patients.  Quite how and why, no one has bothered to explain.

There are already multi-GP surgeries, with nurse practitioners, for example, providing a wide range of services, which frequently negate the need for an out-patient hospital visit.  And that is one of the reasons for polyclinics. 

Not, as the opposition would have us believe, privatisation, but more and better services for the patient, and yes, at a time of our choosing, meeting the needs of our working lives, with appointments in the evenings and at weekends.

No GP will be forced into a polyclinic, nor will local surgeries be threatened with closure, because they are not a ‘one size fits all’ model.  It is for the local PCT, after local consultation with providers and users, to find the best solution for their localities needs.

The BMA conducted a national survey and discovered that 75% of GP’s thought their premises, presumably surgeries, would not meet future needs, and 36% said their premises could not be made ‘compliant’ with the Disability Discrimination Act.

The Government is investing £250 million in GP services, nationwide, and the idea polyclinics for Londoners, if that is what local communities want, will see much greater integrated care, with health, both mental and physical, social care and even advice on housing etc.

No GP will be forced into a polyclinic, nor will the polyclinic have to be a large, single building.  Patients will not have to lose contact with their own GP. What is being envisaged is the closer working of all concerned, to provide ever improving health care and services that help keep us healthy.  What is most definitely not being envisaged is the privatisation of the NHS.