§ Mr. Patrick Jenkinasked the Secretary of State for Social Services (1) how he plans to combat the decline of general practice in city areas: (2) if he has any plans to alleviate the shortage of practice accommodation for general practitioners in city areas.
§ Mr. EnnalsMy Department, the representatives of the medical profession and the Society of Family Practitioner Committees have been concerned for some time to find ways of giving more encouragement to doctors in difficult areas.
My Department has asked area health authorities to make available to general practitioners any surplus accommodation that they may have, and we have recently extended payments to the practitioners 56W under the cost rent scheme to enable them to improve and enlarge existing premises as well as adapting buildings to surgery use where it is not possible to built new premises. The payments should now cover the interest charges on a loan from the General Practice Finance Corporation needed to finance the cost to the doctors of the improvement or enlargement.
Capital sums are earmarked for health centres, and I have made it clear that priority should be given to the establishment of health centres in areas where inadequate accommodation is hampering the development of primary care teams.
My Chief Medical Officer and other officials from my Department have recently met representatives of the General Medical Services Committee and of the Royal College of General Practitioners to obtain their views on all aspects of inner-city primary health care; in particular, to isolate factors which may need to be corrected in order to encourage an adequate number of young vocationally trained general practitioners to work in inner-city areas.
The profession and my Department are also setting up a joint working party including a representative of the Society of Family Practitioner Committees to consider the problems of under-doctored areas generally. It is expected that the working party will look at both financial and non-financial factors affecting the recruitment and retention of doctors in under-doctored areas.