Leading British retailers such as Boots and Tesco will be invited to bid to open GPs' surgeries in their stores.

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

Extract:

"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"."

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