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Family Doctor Services

It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron), who is always worth listening to. He is the Chairman of my Select Committee, so I must be nice to him. This has been an interesting debate. I come to it from the Northamptonshire perspective, but there are variations around the country, which worries me when it comes to the top-down approach of saying that every area must have a health centre or a polyclinic. I asked my staff to trawl through all our letters to see how many people wanted a centre that was open 12 hours a day, seven days a week, but I have not had a single request for that by telephone or e-mail or at my advice surgery. However, I have had a number of letters from constituents stating their concerns about polyclinics. My staff summarise it as follows:"““Worried about loss of patient-doctor relationship. Seems to be older generation that are particularly concerned—value relationship with doctor, see same one frequently and they trust and are at ease with the same doctor.””" Those are the views coming from my patch. I have had a number of briefings from doctors on this subject. I went to a town hall-style meeting in the village of Great Doddington that was attended by 100 people, where the local GP spoke with great passion about her worry that the result would be that the village surgery would close. I can see the appeal of having many services on one site, but there is a real concern that centralising provision and making facilities bigger may result in the loss of village practices, which would be to the detriment of my constituents. I tried to intervene earlier on the Secretary of State. I think that he said that no practices would close as a result of this initiative. The Guardian said that there would be a substantial loss of surgeries if the policy was to proceed, so when the Minister replies will he say whether I understood the Secretary of State correctly? That is an important issue. My second detailed explanation from a GP occurred last Tuesday, and I should explain the circumstances. Last Monday during the recess I did what every good Conservative should do and went out campaigning for Boris for the election, and I got a very good reception on the doorstep. Unfortunately when I had finished that electioneering I fell flat on my face, did my leg in and cracked my ribs and I was covered in blood. I finished up at the GP's surgery, and while she prodded and poked me she had a great opportunity to explain her concerns in some detail. In all the time that I have been a Member of Parliament, when I have been told something by those who are highly respected in the community, I have always taken on board their concerns. In that regard, I have a slight worry about the hon. Member for Dartford (Dr. Stoate). He must have a split personality. Being an MP he is not trusted by anyone, but being a GP he is trusted by everyone. In Northamptonshire, we have already arranged GP out-of-hours availability at two sites. The one that most of my constituents go to is Keydoc, so there is no problem about seeing a GP out of hours, although one could not see one's own GP. No one seems to want to see a change in that system.