---

Polyclinics

We are two hours into the debate and we have yet to hear anyone speak in support of the Government's policies on polyclinics. I am sure that the Whips are going around trying to find someone who will speak up in favour of what the Government are talking about. It is a particular pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Lynne Jones). I could not agree more that all the change in health care should be locally led. I am sure that the Minister will have paid close attention to the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Frank Dobson) who, after all, was the Government's first Health Secretary and talks a great deal of common sense on these matters. There is nothing more important than primary health care because it is the primary interface that patients have with the health care service. That is particularly so for older residents and the very young in our communities. GP surgeries are often the last community-based service that is available not just in villages but in the suburbs. It is a service that gives people access to the NHS at the heart of their communities, close to their homes, and its future should be driven and shaped by those communities to ensure that it meets their needs. Lord Darzi made great play of that recently when he visited the constituency next to mine, just outside Basingstoke, to talk about the future of polyclinics or GP-led health centres. The problem we face in my constituency is that the Government have great house building targets for Basingstoke—with which many local people, including me, do not agree—that are not matched by a similar expansion of local surgeries, including GPs' surgeries. About 1,000 houses a year are being built, there has been a 13 per cent. increase in the number of babies born in our local hospital, and the fastest-growing group of people in my constituency are those aged 65 and over: the pensioners of north Hampshire. However, we are seeing a real lack of support for the development of those important primary health care services in my community. Let me give three examples. Merton Rise is a family development north of Basingstoke. The plan was to have a GP's surgery at the heart of it, but that has been axed. Rooksdown, in the neighbouring constituency of North-East Hampshire, is also a family-based community. For four years, a portakabin has delivered important GP services to families who have produced not just one or two but as many as three babies while they have been living in that community. In the ward of South Ham, 25 per cent. of residents are over 65, and the largest number of 70-year-olds in the borough live there; however, its 1960s GP's surgery is bursting at the seams and long overdue for replacement. Although it is clear that Basingstoke greatly needs investment in primary care, no money has been forthcoming. However, the town has been identified as the favoured location in Hampshire for a town-centre polyclinic. Our PCT has told us that we must have one—we know that it has little choice in the matter—and it will be a significant distance from the communities that I have described. Moreover, the main rationale for the polyclinic is that Basingstoke is a commuter town. Polyclinics may have a role to play in urban and metropolitan areas, but they do not meet the urgent and pressing needs of families and elderly people in the outlying suburbs of Basingstoke. There is a need for basic GP provision, not a centrally dictated solution to a problem that is not the first priority for local residents. It seems perverse to spend money on increased access for commuters rather than mothers with young babies and the over-70s. Basingstoke's town centre already has plenty of GP provision, for historical reasons. We have a newly located GP's surgery, offering an extended range of services, right next door to our station. However, I understand that the present rules will not allow it to bid for a polyclinic, so there is a possibility of duplication where we really do not need it. The Government have put great emphasis on new funding, but it is not altogether clear that the message has reached the PCT in Hampshire. The matter was discussed in some detail at a PCT board meeting in March. According to the board papers, the chairman of the PCT patient and public involvement forum asked whether any services would have to be cut"““to enable this requirement to progress””—" that is, the requirement for a GP-led health centre. The PCT responded that the priorities would need to be ““reassessed””, which does not sound to me like a guarantee against cuts in health care services in the Hampshire area. Perhaps the Minister will clarify that when he winds up the debate.