Following on from last weeks report that several GP surgeries across North East Cambridgeshire have successfully expanded opening hours ahead of schedule, I hope that this Government initiative will mean many more people will find it easier to visit their doctor outside the normal 9 to 5 working hours.

I think it is also important to put to rest any fears that these improvements in local health services will be reversed by the introduction of ‘Polyclinics’.

This week while talking about the proposals for Doddington Hospital with Jessica Bawden, Director of Communications at Cambridgeshire NHS, I asked her to set out the full facts.

The response was simple. Polyclinics are only planned for London, while across the whole of Cambridgeshire the one facility similar to a Polyclinic will be the GP Led Centre planned for St Neots (chosen because of the high number of patients to GPs in that area).

This is an additional health service, and as Cambridgeshire NHS confirmed, it will have no impact on the number of GP surgeries in North East Cambridgeshire.

Peter Roberts

Labour Parliamentary Spokesperson for North East Cambridgeshire