A TOP doctor has rejected calls by the leader of Bolton Council for a GP surgery to open in the A&E department of the Royal Bolton Hospital.

Councillor Cliff Morris quizzed Dr Colin Mercer, the quality and safety lead at Bolton Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) on why the organisation would not consider funding a GP surgery to open within the trust.

His call was backed by hospital boss Andy Ennis — but Dr Mercer insisted having a GP stationed within A&E would not help reduce overcrowding problems.

The debate took place during a discussion over why the Royal Bolton Hospital was forced to declare a ‘major incident’ in January when staff were unable to cope with the number of sick patients.

Cllr Morris asked Dr Mercer to justify why the CCG — made up of the 50 GP practices across Bolton — had previously refused to open a new surgery within the trust.

“He said: “Are the CCG going to revisit this, seeing as it has worked with other hospitals?

“And are they going to tell us why they decided not to support a surgery in A&E?”

Dr Mercer told the committee that the recent winter pressures were less associated with people coming to A&E when they didn’t need to, but the complexity and severity of the patients who were admitted as an emergency.

He added: “We should try and insist that A&E is kept as a last resort, as is keeping people out of hospital and providing better care alternatives to people who might have gone into hospital.

“Nationally we have seen the problem of people going to A&E unnecessarily, but in Bolton it is more sick people going, and I think personally I think it is elderly people.

“I think opening a GP surgery would be a distraction and it goes against our principle of stopping people going to hospital with every little ailment.”

However Mr Ennis, chief operating officer at Bolton NHS Foundation Trust, said he believed having a GP on site could make a difference.

He said: “From the trust’s perspective, the evidence support the view that having some kind primary care provision alongside A&E is generally a good thing.

“But the number of people is not the major driver of our pressures at the current time.”