Local primary care trusts are responsible for organising services in their area. They are currently talking to local people and NHS staff about how the new GP-led health centres can best be provided to meet local needs.
I have to say that the Minister’s answer gives me only very modest reassurance about the intentions of the Department of Health. I implore him not to allow PCTs to have a one-size-fits-all answer, because although polyclinics may be very worth while in some parts of the country, in other more rural parts the local GP service—the smaller service, which perhaps does not offer all the services that are available at the polyclinic—is much more welcome, and much more appreciated by the people who use it, than a polyclinic at much greater distance would be.
I entirely agree that there should not be a one-size-fits-all diktat from Whitehall, and that is exactly why we are leaving it up to local primary care trusts to decide, at the local level, what is the best model for them to use in providing the new services to which we are committed. However, a health centre or polyclinic, or whatever people want to call it, opened recently in a rural area in Devon, near my constituency, and it is very popular. It offers complementary medicine—the hon. Member for Bosworth (David Tredinnick) is no longer in the Chamber—and a number of other services that patients welcome and benefit from. In some cases, such centres can reduce hugely the number of unnecessary admissions to local acute hospitals, which eases pressure on them.
If the Minister comes up to my large rural constituency, he will be able to see how best to introduce polyclinics. Will he allow us to keep the title “health centre” rather than “polyclinic” for both Warsop and Harworth?
Yes. We should not get hung up on definitions. One person’s health centre is another person’s polyclinic is another person’s community hospital. I am aware that there is a good one in my hon. Friend’s constituency. It is not my area, but I am sure that one of my hon. Friends will be delighted to come and visit it.