Family doctor services could be delivered by private companies under reforms to be outlined by the Government today.
The NHS would be able to invite interested parties to supply services in certain situations, such as areas which suffer from GP shortages.
Private firms such as Boots and Bupa are expected to make bids to provide services, alongside ambitious family doctors.
Regular check-ups for people at key stages of life, dubbed health ‘MoTs’, are also to be unveiled when the government White Paper is published later this afternoon.
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The government also wants to encourage more flexible opening hours in GPs’ surgeries as well as transferring some aspects of patient care out of hospitals and into the community. Mooted ‘super surgeries’ could take on these extra tasks, in an attempt to bring healthcare services closer to people’s homes.
It has also been suggested that surgeries could be set up in supermarkets to make patients’ lives more convenient.
Critics have warned of a lack of GP numbers, while the Tories called for a return to GP fund-holding.
Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary, told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: “In the areas - and they tend to be the most disadvantaged - that have never had enough GPs, or where services simply aren’t satisfactory, then it makes sense for the local NHS to invite anyone who is interested.
“It might be GPs and nurse practitioners or a private company, it might be a social enterprise or another not-for-profit organisation. The only test is who is going to provide the best services to patients, all of them free at the point of need.”
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The reforms are part of a community health and care services White Paper which aims to deliver more healthcare outside hospitals, as well as increasing access to GPs and other practitioners.
Tony Blair told GMTV that after a “huge” public consultation involving 42,000 people, the main message was that people wanted better and easier access to care. He told GMTV: “We asked what do you want from your local GP?
“They said we want them closer to where we are living and working, better hours of opening, and easier times, so the services are moulded around the patient rather than the other way round.”
Meanwhile, Andrew Lansley, the Shadow Health Secretary, also told the Today programme: “The system of GP fund-holding, developed under the Conservatives and abolished by Labour, had enabled family doctors to access services more effectively for their patients.
“One of the central questions which the Government’s White Paper has to answer is whether it is going to put the resources and the control close to patients. The best way of doing that is to return to GP fund-holding.”
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Ms Hewitt also suggested the proposals could lead to a reprieve for some cottage hospitals under threat of closure. She said: “Where there are proposals to close local community hospitals or reorganise services, they need to be looked at in the light of the White Paper.
“Modern medical technology is making it possible to do things like kidney dialysis and diagnostic tests, which in the past you could only do in hospital, in local hospitals or in a health centre or sometimes even in people’s homes.”