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Family Doctor Services

I am encouraged to hear what the hon. Gentleman says—despite his very recent arrival in the Chamber, which I welcome. I have to say that in many parts of the country—[Interruption.] I hear a suggestion from a sedentary position that the hon. Gentleman has been saving lives, but I suspect that he was just having his lunch—[Hon. Members: ““Ooh””]. I do not know how much the hon. Gentleman talks to his GP colleagues around the country, but what he referred to is simply not happening in many parts of the country, where many GPs are becoming very disillusioned as a result. I want to say a few words about the Conservatives' over-reliance on the GP to ensure that that whole health system works effectively and in the patient's interests. The Conservative spokesman acknowledged, in response to an earlier intervention, the importance of recognising the potential for conflicts of interest, but that is absent from the Conservative motion and from most of their pronouncements. There are real concerns, including among many GPs, about potential conflicts of interest, and it cannot be said that GPs will always act in the patient's interests. One example can be seen in what I said earlier about exclusions under the QOF system. In my view, it is a dangerous game simply to believe that GPs can run the whole system. They are absolutely central to it, but their role has to be combined with strong, effective commissioning. This afternoon's discussion on the difference between a polyclinic and a health centre was interesting. As I said at the NHS Confederation briefing yesterday, the honest truth is that the difference amounts only to a rebadging. The Government were calling these bodies polyclinics, but they got such a bad name through what GPs and others said about them that we now call them something else. When I asked what a GP-led health centre was all about, all the things that I was told they would contain sounded very much like a polyclinic. These are, at the very least, embryonic polyclinics.