Health centre talks are meaningless, say GPs

11:34am Sunday 1st June 2008

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ANGRY GPs have accused health bosses of "consulting on a done deal" over plans for a new health centre in Worcester.

Worcestershire Primary Care Trust (PCT) is asking patients across the county what they think about proposals for the GP-led health centre in the heart of the city.

However, GPs say the Government has already decided the centre will go ahead, and therefore the consultation is pointless.

Dr Maggie Keeble, of Berwyn House Surgery in Barbourne, Worcester, said: "The PCT should be asking people whether they want a health centre, not what goes in it. They're asking the wrong question.

"Traditional general practices will shrivel up and die. It will be a choice of traditional GPs or a commercial anonymous polyclinic and supermarket-style health clinics."

Where the new health centre will be and who will run it has yet to be agreed by the PCT, although health chiefs have confirmed it will go somewhere in the city centre.

The centre, with doctors and nurses, will be open 8am to 8pm, seven days a week and must be up and running by the end of March 2009.

The PCT has said the service will offer a full range of GP services, even to those not registered with the centre, including appointments, walk-in services, emergency contraception, screening and healthy lifestyle advice.

The PCT and the Research and Intelligence Unit at Worcestershire County Council will survey approximately 2,000 members of the public by post and an online survey is also available. The survey, which must be completed by Monday, June 9, asks whether or not patients will use the centre, and if not, why not?, what services patients think they will use of those offered and what extra services they would like to see.

Dr Simon Parkinson, secretary of the Worcestershire Local Medical Committee, said the PCT was "consulting about a done deal" because the Government was fully behind the new generation of health centres.

But Mike Foster, Labour MP for Worcester, accused GPs of acting like "1960s trade union leaders" and maintains that the new centre is the way forward for patients.

He said: "The consultation is dead easy to do. I thought it was fine and I thought it was fair. It takes five minutes to fill it in online and I urge everyone to do so."

The survey can be completed online at www.worcestershire.gov.uk/researchweb/gpc/gp_centre.htm