Patients will have to travel three times as far to see their GP under Labour 'polyclinic' plans

Polyclinics would force people to travel further to see their GP according to the Tories

The Government wants to open dozens of so-called 'polyclinics' - super-surgeries that would offer patients specialist treatment as well providing them with a family doctor.

But medical experts have warned that hundreds of successful GP surgeries would be forced to close leaving people with limited access to treatment.

More than 100 practices have already been earmarked for closure in London alone and it has been estimated that if the plans were extended to the rest of the country up to 1,700 of the 8,700 GP surgeries would go.

The average distance patients in London will have to travel to see their doctor will rise from 0.5 miles to 1.5 miles.

If this was replicated across Britain the average GP would be three miles away and almost four miles in the South West and East, according to the Tories' figures.

Andrew Lansley, Shadow Health Secretary said:'Labours plans to impose polyclinics on local communities are unravelling by the minute.

'Gordon Brown has said that making GPs more accessible is a vital priority, so why is he pressing ahead with these proposals which would be the very opposite?.

'The average distance people will have to travel to see their local doctor could rise to three miles - in some rural areas it might even be further.

'Ninety per cent of NHS care is administered by GPs. Labour's insistence on introducing polyclinics will make it more difficult for society's most needy, such as the elderly and young families, to see their local doctor.'

At the same time the British Medical Associtation has launched a Support Your Surgery campaign asking members of the public to sign a petition against private involvement in the NHS and expressing fears over the closure of local GP practices.

But the Government has denied that the plans will force the smaller surgeries to close.

Health Secretary Alan Johnston claimed that the polyclinics would be in addition to current services and would receive new funding.

He said: 'Soon patients will benefit from changes that will see GPs offering evening and weekend opening.

'What is so dismaying is the way in which our plans for primary care and GP services have been the subject of gross misrepresentation.

'The Tories are claiming that our plans mean the closure of 1,700 surgeries.

'There is nothing further from the truth and it is extremely disappointing that the BMA would speak in equally lurid and inaccurate terms.

'In some major cities, such as London, clinicians and managers want to go further than GP-run health centres and develop polyclinics - centres that offer an extended range of treatments.

'I will insist that such decisions are taken in consultation with local people and driven by clinical evidence of what works.'