THE plan to launch a network of private family doctors must be resisted. If it is allowed to go ahead, the National Health Service will be seriously undermined.

Health insurers PPP are behind the scheme. Bosses insist that GPs who joined up would remain committed to the NHS, working for private patients only in their spare time.

But this claim does not stand up to scrutiny. We demand so much from our family doctors now that they have more work than they can cope with. This week we reported how the York emergency doctors service was almost overwhelmed with calls over Christmas.

It would therefore appear impossible for GPs to find extra time for fee-paying patients. Almost inevitably, doctors would be drawn to giving their private clients priority in surgery hours.

The result would be the steady privatisation of the family doctor service. Just as it has become difficult to find an NHS dentist, patients would struggle to sign up with a health service GP.

Since the shake-up of the dental profession tooth decay has increased simply because many families cannot afford the cost of treatment.

We must not allow the same to happen to the doctors service. Many people still remember earlier this century when poorer parents were unable to call the doctor to their sick child because they could not afford the bill. The National Health Service was created to end such suffering. For 50 years it has given treatment to all, free at the point of delivery.

The PPP scheme would not destroy that overnight. But it would weaken the foundations of the service and create a system more divisive than GP fundholding.

The National Health Service is the greatest legacy of the Labour Party. If New Labour is serious about protecting free health care, it must outlaw this disgraceful plan before it is introduced.

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