HAVING read the three council response to the Bromsgrove and Redditch Clinical Commissioning Group draft prospectus on the future of acute services in Worcestershire, I commend this to all those involved with this crucial issue.

I believe there is a case for having major trauma and intervention centres for life critical conditions at large acute hospitals, but there must be a 24 hour emergency and urgent care centre within the Redditch service area for the many reasons made in the councils’ report.

I also have to say that there is a duty of care for general practitioners to takeon the out of hours primary intervention provision and provide better access for patients within their practice – is this not a major reason for the increase in A&E attendances.

It is not good enough to look the other way on these issues or be in denial. GPs receive a significant payment for their services and we need to be assured that we get value for money. I am not convinced that overall this is the case. The local NHS England needs to be robust in its approach to assuring the public on this. As GPs run CCGs they could be described as being both poachers and gamekeepers as they have recently awarded contracts to themselves, albeit within the appearance of financial probity.

We must not forget that a GP practice is a business and needs to generate as much income as possible for its shareholders, ie the doctors in the practice.

I would like to see competition applied to GP services.

As most patient records are electronic, access to them could be made to any accredited health professional, after all they are our records.

A patient’s health records and their ownership and control of them are the currency to facilitate a patients’ power to choose aGPpractice that meets their needs.

Robert Gould via e-mail