tHE idea that many people choose to go and sit in crowded doctors surgeries when they don’t need to is a very odd one.

What would motivate anyone to waste time gazing at assorted warning notices on the wall or flicking through year-old copies of Lancashire Life while at the same time running the risk of picking up germs from all those coughing and spluttering around you?

It’s not my idea of a fun way to spend half a day.

Yet it’s what more than half our GPs think a significant number of us patients do, according to a poll by their magazine Pulse.

Apparently the majority of family doctors believe patients should be charged up to £25 for appointments ‘to deter them from turning up at surgeries unnecessarily.’ The fees idea has supposedly been floated as an idea for helping the NHS to cope with increasing demand while at the same time facing budget cuts.

But luckily, even those politicians who favour such a scheme are likely to shy away from calling for it publicly because the majority of the public would not stand for it.

Not only have we spent years paying national insurance specifically to fund a service that is pledged to be free at the point of delivery, but it’s only too easy to see what would quickly happen. The poorest in our society would have to seriously weigh up whether they could afford to go to the doctor because the fee might well mean a family going without a meal.

And we know that one of the keys to staying healthy is getting medical advice as soon as you think something may be wrong.

Early diagnosis hugely increases the chance of successful treatment of all kinds of diseases and conditions, and ultimately survival.

And the opportunity of early diagnosis should be available to all, regardless of their wealth.

There is already too much inequality in health as another set of figures released last week clearly showed.

Although life expectancy in East Lancashire has steadily increased over the past few years, there is still little to be proud of.

Burnley men have an average life expectancy of 75.6 , the fourth lowest in the country, behind Blackpool, Manchester and Salford.

The figure for Blackburn with Darwen men was 75.7, the sixth lowest, while Hyndburn and Rossendale also appeared in the bottom 15 boroughs.

From that, it seems many need to be encouraged to visit their doctor more often – not discouraged.