It will soon – Post Office and delivery agencies willing! – be dropping through the letterbox of every house in my Horsham Parliamentary constituency.

The issues that have dominated local communities in recent months also dominate the front page of my report – namely our need for a new acute hospital and the closure of so many of our cherished post offices.

Local residents have told me that their communities feel rather neglected. They feel that the health authorities and Post Office Ltd have completely ignored their views and their needs and that essential services are moving further and further away from them.

So I expect people will be very concerned about the Government's plans to close over 1,700 GP surgeries and replace them with so-called 'polyclinics'.

What, you might ask, is a polyclinic? Well, they are large multi-purpose healthcare centres, containing GPs, physios, pharmacists and the like.

These may sound like a sensible idea – a convenient one-stop shop, but the Government's plans have been opposed by doctors as this kind of set-up would be imposed on them – they would have no choice but to abandon their local surgeries and move into a polyclinic.

Patients requiring long term care for chronic conditions would be particularly affected by this move. Currently, patients may see many specialists but they are secure in the knowledge that there is one doctor – their GP – in charge of their care. People appreciate this continuity of care.

Others who would suffer are the elderly, those with mobility problems and those with poor access to public transport. Gone will be the days of popping into their local surgery. They will have to travel to the nearest polyclinic – however far away that may be.

Large clinics, which offer a range of services may well spring up in communities around the country – particularly in large cities - but it should happen organically. It should happen because local doctors feel it's the best way to deliver care, because the community wants such a service and where there are adequate public transport links. Of course many of our local GP practices already provide a terrific range of services in excellent modern premises. The Billingshurst practice where my family is registered is superb.

These plans, which have all the hallmarks of the latest Whitehall fad, should not be imposed on communities that are already coming to terms with the loss of their local post office – not to mention corner shops, police stations and other services. We're already struggling with hospital services moving further and further away from the patient – into "centres of excellence" that are too often neither central nor excellent. The polyclinic fad is a fad too far.