5:35pm Tuesday 29th April 2008
A LABOUR MP has broken ranks to echo Tory warnings that plans for giant "polyclinics" across the region spell disaster for neighbourhood doctors.
York MP Hugh Bayley urged ministers to rip up plans for a polyclinic - bringing together GPs, pharmacies and social care services under one roof - somewhere in North Yorkshire.
During a Commons debate, Mr Bayley said he feared the "top-slicing" of cash for traditional GP surgeries in order to fund the new centre, to be staffed by up to 25 doctors.
And he warned: "It could undermine the very services that are now provided in primary care by GPs and practice nurses."
Last week, the Conservatives claimed up to 50 family doctor surgeries would be axed across the region, including five in Middlesbrough, Stockton-on-Tees, Sunderland and Gateshead.
Tory leader David Cameron compared the impact to the closure of thousands of sub-post offices, a programme which has triggered protests up and down the country.
Mr Cameron was immediately accused of scaremongering, as ministers insisted polyclinics would be extra services set up without cutting existing GP surgeries.
Now Mr Bayley's comments suggest unease on the Labour branches at a policy shift that critics claim is being imposed on primary care trusts (PCTs) with no public debate.
Every PCT, including North Yorkshire and York, has been told to draw up plans for at least one polyclinic and to advertise for bidders by next month.
The department of health (DoH) says the centres - also offering physiotherapists, diabetes treatment, minor surgery and diagnostic tests - will bring healthcare "closer to home" than hospitals.
But critics say that is nonsense if patients, particularly the elderly and disabled, have to travel much further to a giant clinic, instead of to a neighbourhood GP.
Many also suspect the next step in "privatising" the NHS, because the size of the independently-run polyclinics makes them attractive to American health companies.
In the debate in NHS services, Mr Bayley said bringing in a private firm would "disrupt the reconfiguration of services which has done so much to improve services and reduce costs in York".
And he said: "Many of the services proposed in the new polyclinics, such as minor surgery, dermatology, audiology and some opthalmology services, are already provided by GPs."
During the debate, health minister Ann Keen rejected Mr Bayley's plea to write off the North Yorkshire and York PCT's outstanding £19m debt, insisting it had a "statutory duty to live within the resources allocated"
to it.
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