Recently, I have been cared for by the district nurses at the medical centre for the first time. They have been extraordinarily attentive, which is obviously because they are part of the medical centre team.

After one of these visits, I picked up a leaflet entitled Support NHS General Practice, which appalled me when I read it. If this Government has its way and establishes polyclinics, we shall become part of a group of people from several villages serviced by a group of doctors.

At the moment, if I telephone the medical centre in the morning I can see a doctor during that day, who I know, and who knows my medical background. I have friends who live in Lynn, who have to wait for several days for an appointment, and I fear that this will be the service that we can expect from a polyclinic.

Why should we have to sacrifice the excellent structure that Grimston Medical Centre provides for a large, potentially impersonal and less well-managed one? Even worse, it is suggested that GP practices, or these polyclinics, are run by commercial companies employing doctors who could be working on short-term contracts. Will they be principally working towards profits or patient service? I think the answer is quite clear, money is their motivation.

So, if you want to keep Grimston Medical Centre I urge you to write to the Primary Care Trust, your county councillor and your MP, and protest before it is too late, otherwise we shall lose the excellent service that we enjoy, and be subjected to an untried and unwanted poor substitute. And if this substitute fails then the future looks very bleak!

It would be far better to invest the money earmarked for this half-baked venture in further developing our superb medical centre.

JOYCE ROBERTS

Pott Row