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Family Doctor Services

I do not know the detail of his QOF points, but the Select Committee will be looking at QOF points later in the year in relation to health inequality. I expect that the debate will be ongoing for a long time, but I come back to how we can assess local health needs other than by measuring the disease burden in communities to determine whether we need more health practitioners, perhaps for preventive reasons or to enable people to be seen more quickly. How do we measure such needs other than by taking such action? Rather than destabilising or closing local GP surgeries, it will give them the opportunity to bid for and to work in the new centre in Rotherham. The Government seek to take the health service to those who need it so that they can make better use of it than they can at the moment because there are fewer doctors in their areas than there should be and those who are there are working hard with a difficult patient workload. The sooner this is sorted out collectively—it does not look as though we will reach a decision on the matter today—the better it will be for the NHS and our constituents.