Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Health – in the House of Commons at 2:30 pm on 12 May 2009.
The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. The vast majority of out-of-hours services up and down the country are still provided by local GPs, whether working in co-operatives or social enterprises, or for private organisations that are contracted or commissioned by the primary care trust. The difference between the system now and the previous system is that they are not compelled to do so. The problem with the previous system was that GPs often felt overtired: mistakes were made and the service was patchy and dangerous in many places. The Conservative idea of going back to the bad old days of forcing all GPs to provide out-of-hours-services would be an absolute disaster.