BMJ  2008;336:1158-1160 (24 May), doi:10.1136/bmj.39581.507627.AD

Feature

Primary care

Primary concern

¹ the Times

Despite government promises of local involvement, proposals for polyclinics and alternative providers of general practice services have upset both doctors and patients. Nigel Hawkes investigates

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Primary care, for so long denied the pleasures of NHS reorganisation, is finally facing a showdown. At risk is the deal under which primary care is supplied by general practitioners (GPs), who combine public service and private entrepreneurship within a protected market.

The private sector is being invited to tender for polyclinics and for primary care services across England. GPs complain that these changes have been sprung on them with little warning. Who voted for polyclinics, they ask, or for open tendering for primary care services and the awarding of contracts to private companies? GPs feel that they have been sandbagged by a reform that lacks political legitimacy or an evidence base.

The British Medical Association has launched a Support your Surgery campaign, while Ara Darzi, the health minister, has promised local people involvement and consultation in any changes to their services.¹ But this promise has been made when the . . . [Full text of this article]

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Poly put the clinic on and we'll all have health.

John S Havard
bmj.com, 28 May 2008 [Full text]

Inadequate consultation by NHS London

Wendy D Savage
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Consultation in Liverpool

Steven D Connolly
bmj.com, 30 May 2008 [Full text]

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