Alan Johnson wants me to travel miles to see a Doctor

In the nanny state that is Labour's aim we now have how best to run GP Practices by a government that doesn't know how to even run its own Party coffers.

In an interview with The Times Mr Johnson indicated that he is preparing to change funding rules this month to make it harder for single-handed GP practices to survive. He says the changes will improve access to doctors, particularly in poorer areas, and allow them to provide better care. Mr Johnson confirms he is preparing to remove a payment - the minimum practice income guarantee (MPIG) - designed to protect GPs operating alone.

“MPIG is a barrier to all sorts of things we want to do,”

So what he will do is affect many of the Practices that are located in more rural areas such as the small village I live in. The GP practice here is one of those pesky single-handed ones, but never mind by taking money away from it Mr Johnson will make myself and other have to travel a minimum of 6 miles to get to the nearest likely alternative. Not too tricky for me, when I'm well, as I can drive and have a car but to many this will be just another hardship forced upon them by the idiots in the Labour Party.

In an interview with The Times in April on this matter David Cameron accused the Government of trying to abolish

The family doctor service, Communities which have lost their post office, their local shops and their local police station, are now going to lose their doctor.

Labour cannot see past their heartlands of the city centres and always assume that one-size fits all. It sees the establishment of Polyclinics and the like as a panacea to provide better access and care to patients when in all likelihood what we will get will be an anonymous service provided by a high cost and low efficiency corporate interested only in profits who will take the NHS to the cleaners.

Labour they'll drive you to your local GP, only they won't be there anymore.


Alan Johnson's Nazi gibe to attack opponents of GP super-surgeries - Times Online

Pretty Polly Toynbee is looking after the poor people again

Let them eat Cake - Polly at work

Last night I saw this article by the esteemed Polly in the Guardian about GP's and the set up of Polyclinics and pointed Dr Crippen to it though no doubt he would have seen it or had it brought to his notice fairly quickly. I would have had a go at it but I thought someone who really knew the facts would do better a job and Dr Crippen has done just that. Do go and look at the whole article. A quick extract below to whet your appetite

When I started NHS BLOG DOCTOR a couple of years ago, I soon came across the DK, the ageing Greek and Tim Worstall. All three seemed mysteriously unified in their hatred of Polly Toynbee. As Polly increasingly frequently turns her champagne socialist hand to the NHS I begin to understand why she was so disliked. Today, she has produced a tendentiously headlined concatenation of half truths, misrepresentations and down right lies about GPs.

Dr Crippen finishes off with the following which gets to the heart of what Ms Toynbee is

Her article is offensive, full of hate. Like every other man and woman in the country, doctors want to improve their income. Her imputation that doctors are lazy, uncaring and cynically chasing money at the expense of their patients is outrageous. It is also upsetting and demoralising. Most doctors are decent, honourable people trying to do a good job in increasingly difficult circumstances.

The worst thing about Polly is that she has prostituted her journalistic credentials for a cheap headline. She purports to know what “ordinary people”, to her the “common folk”, want and need from their doctors. Heavens, she has even pretended to be poor for a few weeks. Gosh, that’s brave, Polly.

She has not got a clue. Ignorance is bad enough for someone in her position. But it is worse than that. She is dishonest. She is a hypocrite. She has no understanding of ordinary people, or their needs, When she is not in her Italian villa, she sits in her spacious Victorian house in one of London’s most desirable suburbs, regally handing out pieces of intellectual cake to the poor folk.

Polly a True champagne Socialist at work!

NHS Blog Doctor: Pretty Polly Toynbee is looking after the poor people again