HC Deb 28 April 1998 vol 311 c131
4. Mr. Paul Truswell (Pudsey)

What plans he has to ensure the proper regulation of walk-in private GP clinics. [38674]

The Minister for Public Health (Ms Tessa Jowell)

General practitioners involved in private clinics are subject to scrutiny by the General Medical Council in the same way as all other doctors.

Mr. Truswell

Did not the recent survey in Health Which? paint a particularly depressing picture of people paying between £36 and £250 to see a GP who did not know them from Adam; who had no access to their medical records; who was not trained to the exacting standards of the NHS; who was not subject to a proper complaints procedure; and who was not registered with the local health authority? Quite apart from those concerns, is this not one more chilling indictment of the previous Government's mentality, which gave rise to this form of taxi-rank medicine?

Ms Jowell

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The account in Health Which? of prescribing by a number of independent walk-in health centres made disturbing reading. It is not in patients' interests—which are the single most important thing—to go to a GP who does not know them, or their medical history, or what they are being prescribed. That is why our efforts are going into building a modern and dependable health service which is led by quality, combining technical excellence with the responsive and flexible meeting of patients' needs. In pursuit of that, my hon. Friend will join me today in welcoming the allocation of £4.2 million to drive down waiting lists for his constituents, honouring a promise made by the Government at the time of the election a year ago.

Mrs. Marion Roe (Broxbourne)

Will private GPs be able to make secondary recommendations? What is the Minister's view of the relationship between private GPs and the NHS?

Ms Jowell

With great respect, I think that I have made the situation absolutely clear. Our concern is with the interests of patients. It is not in their interests to shop around and to go to several different GPs. They will receive the best care by going to a GP who knows them and whose services and care are supported by state-of-the-art medicine, delivering health care to patients where they need it.

Dr. Peter Brand (Isle of Wight)

I am very disappointed that the Minister is ducking the question. Does she not agree that our experience with slimming clinics, some cosmetic surgery clinics, and now private walk-in clinics, is such that we need a regulatory mechanism that is more beefed up than that existing at present?

Ms Jowell

We do Keep any such development under close review, but the medical conduct of GPs who operate in those or other private clinic is a matter for the General Medical Council.