HARROW health bosses recommend introducing a polyclinic to serve patients in Kenton and Edgware.

NHS Harrow - formally Harrow PCT - will consult on the idea from May onwards as part of its review into the future of primary care services in the east of the borough.

Under the proposal, Belmont Health Centre in Kenton Lane, Kenton, would become a community health centre open from 8am to 8pm seven days a week offering a doctor's surgery, a pharmacy and tests normally only available in hospitals.

It would be linked to two new GP-led health centres - one in the area around Mollison Way, Edgware, due to open by November 1 and the other at the empty Kenmore Clinic, Kenmore Road, Kenton - that would operate the same running hours as the polyclinic.

However, polyclinics are a controversial idea and the re-opening of Alexandra Avenue Health and Social Care Centre in Alexandra Avenue, South Harrow, as one on April 29 has attracted criticism from, among others, the Conservative Parliamentary candidate for Harrow West, Dr Rachel Joyce.

Dr Joyce calls them "impersonal super-surgeries" and says: "Polyclinics are little different from a small hospital, and nothing like the independent, local GP practice with just a few doctors that patients know and trust.

"As they also partly do some work currently performed by hospitals, they put local hospitals as well as GP surgeries at risk."

A report discussed at Tuesday's NHS Harrow board meeting said: "Having appraised the health needs, our estate and financial position, we feel that the poly system model would be the most appropriate model of primary and community care in Harrow east.

"Integrated service delivery, both between health and social care and between primary and community care teams, is not supported by the current configuration of services. Patients reported experience reflects this.

"Access to primary care services tends to be poorer in the east of Harrow. East Harrow practices perform worse across several survey areas than both the rest of Harrow and the national average.

"Patients’ satisfaction with opening hours, for example, is 10 per cent lower in east Harrow compared to the rest."