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Family Doctor Services

No, there has not; that is the true and honest answer to the question. Around the time of the last general election, there were problems with the way in which one practice near my constituency office interpreted the 48-hour rule that was introduced a few years ago. That was the only time that anything was said about the health service at the time of the general election. People were upset that they had to phone in the morning for an appointment that day—an impossible task, particularly for people who work and people with young families. I thought that that was a gross misinterpretation of the agreement, and so did the primary care trust. It had to try to negotiate with the GP practice on whether it would relax its strict interpretation of the rule and free-up access in a reasonable way. We were not talking about opening the practice seven days a week, 12 hours a day; we just wanted to free-up access in a reasonable way, so that people who were on that family doctor services list could get seen in a more reasonable time. That was a complaint about one surgery; there were no complaints about the many other GP surgeries in my constituency.