Sarah Hall, health correspondent 

Fruit, veg and a trip to the GP as stores are asked to open surgeries

· Areas with fewer doctors to be targeted by scheme· Boots and Tesco among retailers thought suitable
  
  


Leading retailers such as Boots and Tesco will be invited to bid to open GPs' surgeries in their stores in areas with too few doctors under an initiative to be announced by the health secretary, Patricia Hewitt, today.

Advertisements calling for "experienced healthcare providers" to apply for four contracts initially worth £30m over five years will be placed in the national and local press this month.

Entrepreneurial GPs, social enterprises and companies in the FTSE 100 will be asked to apply. But supermarkets will have to team up with existing GP groups before they can be considered. The expectation is that supermarkets would provide the space for GPs to open surgeries within their stores, an idea in which several have expressed interest.

The initiative, first mooted in the 2006 health white paper, is designed to increase the number of GPs in deprived areas that have the fewest doctors.

The first four primary care trust areas to benefit will be Hartlepool, County Durham, Mansfield and Great Yarmouth, all areas that have significantly fewer GPs than the national average of 57.9 for every 100,000 people. Great Yarmouth and Waveney PCT has 48.5; Hartlepool PCT 47.5; County Durham PCT 46.5; and Nottinghamshire county teaching PCT 43.6.

All four areas will have their centres set up by the end of the coming year, and 26 further areas are expected to join the programme in the coming months.

As services will be offered by private providers, the initiative means GPs will not be covered by the controversial GPs' contract - which allowed GPs to opt out of providing 24-hour cover - and so can offer "breakfast", evening and Saturday morning surgeries. Last week the Commons public accounts committee condemned the government's handling of this contract as "shambolic".

Today's announcement coincides with a policy review on public services, written by the prime minister's delivery unit, which suggests that services should be more accessible at times convenient to their users. It reveals that nine out of 10 people attending a recent Policy Review Forum said GP surgeries ought to open some evenings and weekends, even if that means shutting during the working week.

The review also suggests that within 10 years the government could publish league tables which include uncensored opinons similar to those offered by retailers such as eBay or Amazon.

More immediately, the paper promises to bring forward the timetable for providing a free choice of hospitals for acute healthcare, with it being promised for hip surgery later this year. A No 10 aide said such moves were essential to the Blair government's "project" , establishing the right of people to expect the same level of service from the public sector as they would in the private sector.

Announcing the surgeries initiative - which has been piloted in Hackney and Barking - Ms Hewitt said: "GPs are largely providing a good service, but there are still areas where NHS patients cannot rely on traditional practices. We now want to help the NHS plug the last remaining gaps by introducing new services, reducing the pressure on existing practices and giving patients the choice they deserve.

"Thousands of NHS patients who would have otherwise found it difficult seeing a GP will benefit from new deals between the NHS and new providers. NHS patients will also see extended GP opening hours, including evening and Saturday morning surgeries, thanks to the new contracts."

The Department of Health added: "The ads we're issuing are inviting bids from experienced healthcare providers, so while we are looking for bids from all sorts of providers from FTSE 100 companies to social enterprises, supermarkets would need to team up with existing GPs before they could be considered."

Last month a branch of Boots in Poole, Dorset, became the first store to offer an in-store doctor. But the care was offered by an NHS GP who is renting a room to provide the care. Asda and Sainsbury's have also expressed interest in the initiative.

The British Medical Association said NHS GPs would like to provide services in deprived areas if given sufficient resources. "If there are going to be new resources, as we understand there are, we would be angry if these were only offered to private providers", it said.

 

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