---

Polyclinics

Because we have been so under-doctored, and GPs surgeries have been poor in the past, people have used accident and emergency at the hospital instead. Wigan A and E is a major trauma centre—it is next-door to the motorway—and has a high-dependency unit and an intensive care unit. Using doctors trained to provide those services for what is, in essence, primary care had a deleterious effect. The health centres, with their longer opening hours and wider range of services, have a beneficial effect. We need more such health centres, because we want to shift the NHS from being an organisation that treats ill health to one that intervenes to prevent people from getting ill.