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Every Londoner will have a polyclinic in their borough before the Olympics, the Health Secretary claimed today.
Andy Burnham said he was determined that the credit crunch will not stop plans to build the “super-health centres” by 2012.
Mr Burnham has also admitted that the NHS needs to make £20 billion savings.
He said that cuts would not hit clinical services, but admitted that health bosses in London would have to “take a close look at services going forward”.
He added: “The roll-out of polyclinics is on track. They will open up a new range of possibilities for services to be provided closer to home.
“In the next decade more services will come out of hospital settings.”
Health bosses in Wandsworth have admitted they scrapped plans for a polyclinic because of the recession.
It raised fears that plans for more polyclinics would be shelved. But Mr Burnham said: “I am assured that London Primary Care Trusts are still working towards 100 per cent population coverage by 2012.”
Mr Burnham added that overhauling how elderly people are cared for is vitally important for Londoners.
He wants to create a National Care Service to make sure there is enough money to look after people as they grow older.
www.careandsupport.direct.gov.uk
Reader views (4)
Everyboy will get polyclinics......whether they want them or not! I'd rather the money was spent on cleaning hospitals properly and buying medicine, but hey I'm only a voter.
- Mark, London
Parasite Burnham totally lost the plot ages ago.
In case nobody has told Burnham, the NHS is bankrupt.
- Reuben Camara, Morecambe Compound, EUSSR
NHS Enfield has two Primary Care Centres at Forest Road Primrary Care Centre at 308a Hertford Road N9 and the Evergreen Primary Care Centre at 1 Smythe Close N9 (albeit co=located GP surgeries with walk in service). The local clinicians are awaiting the announcement of a name change to a dual site "polyclinic" any day now to please the aspirations of the Secretary of State, Andy Burnham, NHS Enfield has announced a projected March 31 2010 year end deficit of £24.2 as of 31st August 2009 and growing monthly.
- Donald Smith, London
That is not a decision he is going to be able to make ~ thankfully.
- Frank, Home Counties, England.
