Medical leaders today stepped up their campaign against the Government's plans to introduce polyclinics, claiming that patients will suffer as a result of the reforms of family doctor services.

More than 1.2 million people have signed a petition calling on the Government to support existing GP practices against the threat of closure, and to oppose the involvement of private companies in running local health services.

The British Medical Association said that the number of signatures, gathered over a three-week period, showed “huge concern” among the public and the medical profession over plans to shake up existing GP services in England, and the prospect of “creeping commercialisation” in the NHS.

The petition, organised by the BMA, will be delivered to Downing Street this afternoon in order to present a stark message of complaint to Gordon Brown, the doctors' union said.

But ministers have criticised the poll, suggesting that doctors have been persuading patients to sign it on the basis of misleading and inaccurate claims. The Government has pledged £250 million to create at least 152 new health centres and an additional 50 new GP practices, which ministers claim will offer patients more services and extended opening hours, from 8am to 8pm, alongside existing GP practices.

Every local Primary Care Trust in England has been told that it has to have at least one new “GP-led heath centre” as part of the review of the NHS being conducted by Lord Darzi of Denham. These will have family doctors and nurses working in teams, and perhaps also provide services such as pharmacy, dentistry and minor surgery - in order to prevent patients going “from pillar to post” for medical attention, ministers say.

But medical leaders fear that private companies such as Virgin, United Health and supermarket chains will be offered contracts to run the surgeries at the expense of local doctors, whose practices may have to close.

Laurence Buckman, chairman of the BMA's General Practitioners Committee, today described the changes as the “dumbing down of GP services”. Speaking at a conference of local medical committees in London, he said: “It will see the rise of clinics further away from the patients they serve and providing much less of the personal care and commitment they value. It will see the rise of doctors in primary care who will know a lot about bits of the patient but not much about the family.

“The private sector is being encouraged to bid to run these new centres and doctors do not believe the bidding process allows for anything like a level playing field."

Dr Buckman added: “If the Government won't listen to you, their doctors, then surely it will listen to the 1.2 million men and women who call for a halt to the plans to promote the use of commercial companies in general practice.

“My message to Gordon Brown is this: whatever you think of GPs, take note of what your electorate thinks. Work with us to improve the service, not against us, and ignore at your peril the wishes of the most important people in the NHS — the patients.”

In a letter to The Times, published today, Michael Taylor, a GP and chairman of the Family Doctor Association, which represents small practices, adds: “One of the Government's 50 new GP practices will open its doors a few hundred yards from my door and will attempt to create a list of 6,000 patients by luring them away from existing practices.

“One of the expressions of interest for the Darzi practice is known to come from a consortium led by Sainsbury's. My practice, like all others in the town in which I practice, is targeted to lose 20 per cent of our patients.

“Currently my practice delivers 98 per cent quality medicine as judged by the Department of Health's Quality and Outcomes Framework ... [but] it will prove difficult to maintain such quality and the enthusiasm to sustain it, when contesting the predation of new practice on our door step.”

But Ben Bradshaw, the Health Minister, defended the Government's plans, saying that doctors felt threatened by the prospect of competition within the NHS.

“The BMA are concerned that when real choice is introduced into the primary care system, patients will walk away from poor and under-performing GPs,” he said. “That's nothing to do with our current programme to improve GP services in every area. They have been winding up members of the public with this inaccurate and misleading campaign. It is completely unacceptable.”

Mr Bradshaw added that he had seen a “flood of complaints” from patients who had come under pressure from their doctor to support the BMA's campaign.

“None of what the Government has required will result in a single GP practice closing,” he said. “Over the last decade there has been a dramatic increase in the number of GPs — there are more than 5,000 more now than in 1997 — but there are fewer GP practices.

“GPs have themselves preferred to work in teams, because they know that they can provide better care by doing so. They can't blame the Government for that — we are talking about an extra investment in GP services.”

In under-doctored areas, new health centres and practices will be set up under arrangements which will allow private companies and groups of existing GPs to bid to run the surgeries.

But Mr Bradshaw also denied that the moves would lead to widespread commercialisation of GP services. “With 6,000 GP practices in the country, even if all of the extra capacity went to the independent sector it would still only represent 3 per cent of total primary care provision,” he said.

Speaking to The Times on a visit to a recently built health centre in Kirkby, Nottinghamshire, Mr Bradshaw said that the new health centres were different from “polyclinics” — facilities proposed for London and other urban areas, which are envisaged to bring up to 25 GPs and other services together in one building or network.

But he admitted that there had been confusion over the Government's plans, adding: “I do not talk about polyclinics, because no one can provide me with a clear definition of what one is. They are one of the particular changes that has been proposed for London.

“What we are talking about is providing the right services for the right people so that they may be treated closer to their homes. Patients will not have to de-register from their existing GP to visit a health centre; they will operate like existing walk-in centres, but staffed by GPs, not just nurses.

“It is totally up to local Primary Care Trusts and doctors to decide what additional services these centres will provide. All we ask is that they offer access to GPs for taxpayers who find it difficult to visit their doctor during office hours. I don't think that is as unreasonable as the BMA suggests.”

Dr Buckman retorted: “Patients come to us because they see us as providing continuity - something that matters to many. When asked how long we spend with patients, we can say ‘25 years'. The Government is chucking that away at their peril.”

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