I THINK it is important to let everyone know what the Government's future plans are for general practitioners' surgeries (and the NHS).

Like everything nowadays, surgeries are to be closed one by one and replaced by large centres or, in this case, "polyclinics". These will be set up to run in direct competition to existing surgeries and not to support them and will mostly be run by large companies - their priority being to make a profit.

The Government is being very quiet about this - not surprisingly. Last year a report was written and then hidden away - until the end of the year when letters were sent to the health authorities stating that this new policy was to be implemented. This major change is to take place without any debate at all. The Department of Health has already instructed PCTs to advertise for bidders.

These new polyclinics will eventually swallow up doctor's surgeries. They will perhaps contain extra services but they will be much less convenient. There will be fewer centres and they will be further from the patient (out of touch with environmental concerns as well). Professor Ara Darzi launched the policy. He is a colo-rectal surgeon (not a GP). He is now a peer and an undersecretary of state for health. He says he has spoken to hundreds of people to ask their opinions but there are no records of this.

Professor Darzi has said that if public opinion were against these centres they would not be compulsory. Alan Johnson (in the House) also said the same. However these statements are not the truth. In a parliamentary answer in February, health minister Bradshaw confirmed that "every PCT in the country will be procuring a new ... health centre during 2008-09".

The plans for polyclinics across the UK are already well advanced. And although the Government has promised that entrepreneurial GPs will get a level playing field' in the tendering process for the new clinics, leading companies are confident they will easily out-muscle GP practices. Polyclinics might be a solution for some communities (central London), but particularly in rural areas (e.g. Dorset) access to a doctor could become a nightmare.

Darzi says the polyclinics will provide a more personalised service. This is clearly nonsense. They will be large centres and you will probably not see the same GP (or, more likely, nurse or paramedic) twice.

The Government wishes to privatise the GP service but cannot do so easily because GPs own their practices. The big corporations (Virgin, Tesco etc) want to run them and so new centres must be set up for them.

Being large companies, they can afford to buy many such centres. Patients will be lured by promises of extended opening and many more services. However what eventually will happen will be the end of the personal family doctor who knows you and your family's problems well. You will instead see a string of temporary doctors who really have no such interest. The result will also be an end to free health care and the beginning of an American style insurance system.

It is in the public's hands to protest. The Government has been very careful to keep us all in the dark until they hope it will be too late. Lobby now if you want to keep your free health service and to stop the multinationals making a lot of money from it instead.

Local doctor, (Name and address supplied).