DOCTORS and patients are fighting against plans to create a GP 'super surgery' in Oxfordshire.

The Government has asked every primary care trust in England to set up at least one so-called polyclinic - a surgery housing up to 25 doctors and offering multiple services 12 hours a day, seven days a week.

But campaigners say it would "threaten the very survival" of smaller practices.

A new clinic is set to be built in Banbury next year, but a large number of the county's doctors are opposed to the concept.

They claim the centres, which could be privately run, would threaten other local surgeries and "put profits before patients".

Dr Jo Jenkins, Dr Jon Bickford and Dr Emma Bolton, of Marston Medical Centre, cycled to the British Medical Association's headquarters in London last week to deliver a 550-name anti-polyclinic petition.

The BMA has sent petitions to every surgery in the country and presented the signatures to 10 Downing Street yesterday.

Dr Jenkins said: "The diversion of funding away from small general practices is threatening our very survival. The Department of Health should be investing in existing local services instead of wasting taxpayers' money on huge, impersonal, commercial surgeries that will often mean patients having to travel further, probably by car."

At East Oxford Health Centre, in the Cowley Road, more than 1,000 people have signed the BMA's petition.

Dr Helen Groom, a GP at the centre and secretary of the Oxfordshire Keep Our NHS Public campaign, said: "We are fully behind it and against the attack on GPs and the privatisation of the health service. Polyclinics are a huge worry for us and for patients. Big multi-national companies could be running these clinics and putting profits first."

Alan Webb, director of commissioning for Oxfordshire PCT, insisted that the new facility would be a GP health centre, not a polyclinic.

He said: "It is an additional service with additional funding and there are absolutely no plans to close any surgeries as a result of this."

Mr Webb said the impact on surgeries outside the Banbury area would be "minimal" and the trust was working closely with local GPs.

He added: "There are currently no plans to develop similar centres across the county, however, we do need to be aware of changes to the population and where there are opportunities to look at what the demand is like, we will have to work with local GPs to meet those needs."

Mr Webb added that while some patients might choose to use the new centre outside normal hours they could remain registered at their normal GP practice.