Medical practices committee chair Ro Day has written to health secretary Alan Milburn to express 'serious concern' about the government's use of 'incorrect and misleading' information to justify the proposed abolition of the committee and its replacement with a financial formula. The government's claim that there are 50 per cent more GPs in Kingston and Richmond or Oxfordshire than in Barnsley or Sunderland is based on three-year-old data, insists Ms Day. Up-to-date figures reveal there to be proportionately more GPs in both Sunderland and Barnsley than in either Kingston and Richmond or Oxfordshire, Ms Day claims. Defending the committee's 52-year stewardship of the distribution of GPs across England and Wales, she writes that a financial allocation formula 'can only create an open market for a scarce commodity'.

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