Health Secretary offers lukewarm 'reassurances' after North Shropshire MP raises GP fears
Health secretary Wes Streeting stopped short of saying new combined services included in a "10-year plan" for the NHS would not mean a loss of face-to-face healthcare in north Shropshire.
North Shropshire MP Helen Morgan had asked for reassurances on GP numbers in rural areas of her constituency, after the launch of a new Government NHS strategy which it said will "reinvent the NHS through transformational change" and safeguard its future.
The scheme includes new neighbourhood health centres, a healthcare model which the Government said will co-locate NHS, local authority and voluntary sector services, and in turn reduce pressure on GPs and A&E services.
The Government also said two new contracts due to be rolled out next year will "encourage GPs to work over larger geographies and lead new neighbourhood providers".
During a debate on Friday, July 3, Ms Morgan sought reassurances that the changes would not lead to a loss of physical GPs in more rural areas, where patients would be less able to travel to a large combined healthcare centre in a different town.
"The 10-year plan implies that GP contracts will encourage them to cover a huge geographic area of 50,000 people. In North Shropshire, that would be two or three market towns combined and would span dozens of miles," she told the House of Commons.
"Can the Secretary of State reassure me that there will still be a physical health centre, accessible to all, and that in areas with little public transport in particular, people will be able to access care when they need it?"
In response, Mr Streeting welcomed Liberal Democrat support for the Government's plans, adding that some cynicism about the Government's proposed use of technology to replace some aspects of traditional healthcare was "understandable".
As part of the plans, the Government also hopes to make diagnosis with a new "digital-by-default" standard, where care takes place "in a patient’s home where possible, in a neighbourhood health centre when needed, in a hospital if necessary".
But he stopped short of offering specific reassurances on the loss of local GP services for north Shropshire, saying only that a "one-size-fits-all" solution would not work for community healthcare.
"I absolutely reassure the Honourable Member for North Shropshire on the point that she raises about neighbourhood health centres," he said.
"One of the reasons we want to devolve so much power in the NHS is that I genuinely think that the closer decisions are made to the communities they serve, the better the outcomes and the provision. A one-size-fits-all approach to neighbourhood care simply will not work.
"On our priority of rolling out neighbourhood health centres, I want to reassure members on both sides of the house that we will start with the areas of greatest inequality and need, and communities where people have to travel far to their nearest hospital, so that people can genuinely receive care closer to home and, indeed, at home. Technology can play a big role in that."
