FactCheck: Alan Johnson and the GPs

The background

According to the Tories, Alan Johnson's plans to introduce new polyclinics - super-sized health centres - would sound the death knell for hundreds of traditional doctors' surgeries.

Is Johnson right to say "nothing could be further form the truth" about such fears?

The analysis

FactCheck called with the Department of Health (DoH) to make sure Johnson meant to say that no GPs' surgeries would close because of the onset of polyclinics. A DoH spokeswoman said: "Absolutely. We are putting extra money [£250m] into healthcare and existing services. This is on top of services that are already provided.

"It is not an amalgamation. But at the end of the day it is for strategic health authorities (SHAs) to decide what services they need in their local area - as each region is different." There is always a "but..." So the DoH says none are going to close, unless of course the local health authorities want them too.

But London's SHA, where the first wave of polyclinics is set to open, quickly rejected the claim that any closures would be on its say-so.

A spokesman for NHS London said: "It's not a matter for the SHAs, it's a matter for the primary care trusts (PCTs). They decide about localised service levels."

However, he added that around 37 per cent of GPs' surgeries in London failed to comply with disability legislation at the moment - they are not accessible enough - meaning those issues "would have to be resolved over time anyway".

Certainly the later point is more than a hint at closures, although for a technically separate reason to the influence of polyclinics. Polyclinics won't be to blame?

As for London's PCTs? Well, they will reveal their plans for the future of services on Thursday. Until then, they are keeping quiet. Until we know how many polyclinics there are going to be, it's difficult to do the back-of-a-fag-packet calculations over potential closures.

But that hasn't stopped the Tories.

Their claim of 1,700 surgery closures is based on assumptions that every PCT will set up polyclinics, and assume that each one will have 25 GPs who will leave their own surgeries to set up the new centres.

It is perhaps a leap too far at this stage.

On a more independent level, the Kings Fund, a research foundation, produced a report into polyclinics last week, but it shied away from putting a figure on how many closures it thought there would be. It is, however, sure there will be some.

A spokesman for the fund said: "How long is a piece of string really? Polyclinics in London are going full steam ahead - and London PCTs will announce their plans on 12 June.

"After all the PCTs have shown their hand then we can get an idea as to how many polyclinics there will be; some might go for none, so might go for ten, it's up in the air. But there will definitely be closures."

FactCheck rating: 3.5

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Every time a FactCheck article is published we'll give it a rating from zero to five.

The lower end of the scale indicates that the claim in question largely checks out, while the upper end of the scale suggests misrepresentation, exaggeration, a massaging of statistics and/or language.

In the unlikely event that we award a 5 out of 5, our factcheckers have concluded that the claim under examination has absolutely no basis in fact.

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