Thursday, 28 August 2008

Super surgeries

Contracts are being negotiated - bids are going in. The much fought over super surgeries in England are becoming a reality. But who volition run them and wherefore are GPs still so angry?




Grimsby is one of the almost deprived parts of England.



It has high levels of ticker disease, obesity and adolescent pregnancy - no better place then than Grimsby, you would think, for a young super surgery.



The political science in Westminster wants to see 152 of them, one for every elemental care trust in England. They volition not be set up in the rest of the UK.



There has been a groovy deal of confusion about these centres.



They ar not polyclinics, which ar a halfway house 'tween a GP surgery and a hospital and will only be set up in London.



What the rest of England will let are GP-led health centres. They will have a range of services, including GPs.



You will non have to register to be seen, and the key thing about them is access.



They will be open seven years a hebdomad from 8am until 8pm.



Heavy users



At a church charles Martin Hall in Grimsby I met a grouping of ladies playing Bingo.

















They ar heavy users of their local elemental care services, and most say they are felicitous with the service they currently get.



But the idea of a raw health center with long opening hours goes down well.



"Walk in anytime? Sounds good," aforesaid one woman.



"I think it would be marvellous," said another. "Particularly at weekends because you do catch poorly at the weekends. I call up it would be ideal."



But not everyone is so happy. Local GPs ar livid.



They say the money being spent on the new centre - around �1m - could be much better played out providing services that ar actually needful.



They worry about continuity of tending, and they claim existent GP services will be threatened.



'No need'



Dr Suven Sakarr has been a GP in Grimsby for more than 20 years.



"We do not need a GP-led health centre," he said.

















"We are open almost all the time. Do the patients want that sort of access? Do the patients demand to go anytime to a polyclinic? I don't think they do."



There is another reason GPs here are overturn. Grimsby has already been building fresh surgeries.



Here they call them Primary Care Centres. Most have a chain of mountains of services, a tooth doctor, a pharmacy, community and mental health services.



"They have taken a nonpareil size fits all approach to it," said Dr Ekta Elston, another local GP.



"The proposals may work well in the larger cities merely not in the rest of England."



Private providers



However, even thought Dr Elston is opposed to the fresh centre she has distinct to bid to run it with other local GPs.



Why? Because she is worried that a private company may win the contract.



"It is the NHS and it doesn't feel like the NHS if you have got private companies involved," she said.



"I'm sure that patient fear is top of their agenda merely above that comes devising money. I don't think that is right."

















The new GP-led health centres are open to private providers. Rory McCrea is an NHS GP world Health Organization runs 37 GP practices.



He owns a company called Chilvers McCrea Healthcare and he's bidding to run some of the centres.



"Traditional GP practice has failed in rattling delivering a lot more than access that people need," said Dr McRae.



"It struggles with telephone systems, it has struggled with investment funds.



"I tooshie understand people having concerns but the real progeny from a taxpayers point of thought is foil.



"Whoever the provider is are they going to do a decent job and ar we exit to see what they are doing with their money. It is a question of regulation, non who the provider is."



GPs, of course, are private providers within the NHS. They ar not remunerated employees, they have contracts.



Whoever ends up running them 152 new surgeries, open all hours, are on the way.



They may change the face of general exercise in England as we know it.






More info