Goodbye GP Areas - Hello Polyclinics

GPs have been a pain in the butt for the advance of socialism.

But plan A to get rid of these annoying ( for govt ) Doctors the polyclinics has been met with a hail of bad publicity and criticism.

So plan B has had to be a bit more subtle and us a stealth approach ( the New Labour types must wonder why they ever did anything as stupid as telling people what they were up to in plan A anyway ).

Abolish GP catchment areas.

This will mean that those shiny new Polyclinics can pick up lots of patients fast. It will also mean GP practices lose their geographical commitment and knowledge of their patients. Nobody will get a visit ( the last GP I can remember seeing do a visit to a patient was my Mother who I often had to wait for 30-60 mins for int he car every night whilst she drove around town and did her visits after a long surgery at about 7:30pm every day ).

Chaos will abound with things like emergency cover and the like.

But quietly the govt will get its way of challenging the power of the GPs and turning them into salaried supervisors of Nurse Practitioners whose protocol will decide if your from the right social class (ie sufficiently Labour voting socially deprived ) to live or die.

PS Don't forget the unintended consequences. My guess is they will include - religious segregation of GP practices.