§ 37. Mr. Hicksasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what advice he has given to area and district health authorities in respect of the provision of health centres; and if he will make a statement.
§ Dr. VaughanWe issued a health circular (HC(80)6; HC(FP)(80)2) last May in which we asked health authorities to review schemes for health centre building and proceed only where the scheme was clearly supported by the general practitioners who would work from the health centre; where it would make a marked improvement to the standards of primary health services and where the possible ways of assisting general practitioners to improve their own premises had been considered and were not regarded as appropriate. We made it clear that, where centres were proceeded with, a reasonable rather than ideal level of provision should be the aim. Our intention was to avoid making unnecessary use of health authorities' capital allocations and to avoid increasing unnecessarily the number of publicly owned premises. Copies of the circular were placed in the Library of the House.