Police surgeons should be given more training, higher pay and better facilities to cope with an ever-increasing workload at North Yorkshire's police stations, it was claimed today.

Retired Harrogate police surgeon Dr John Givans also criticised conditions in some of the county's custody suites which he said meant people often had to be moved to another station or even released.

He was speaking as a report published today pointed to major strains on the service across the country and called for urgent modernisation.

In rural areas like North Yorkshire, the report by the Audit Commission said, some forces had difficulties recruiting enough police surgeons, and in one area in the country, 12 police surgeons were contacted before one could be found who was available immediately to examine a rape case victim.

It said there was also a shortage of women police surgeons, even though in alleged sexual assault cases the option of examination by a female doctor had to be offered.

Most police surgeons were GPs who were called out on a rota, and over the last 30 years their workload had changed and increased.The majority of call-outs now involved determining whether prisoners were fit to interview, rather than taking blood tests, and the cost of the service nationally had risen from £12 million in 1992 to £20 million in 1997.

Surgeons' pay varied from place to place depending on the number of call-outs and could range from £400 in rural areas to £5,000 a month in busier, city areas.

One of the report's recommendations was that some services, such as blood tests, could be carried out by nurses or other health workers.

But Dr Givans said he was wary of cost-cutting measures and said more investment was needed to encourage more GPs to come forward.

"Frequently one finds that when one is called out to take a blood sample, there is some other decision that has to be made as to whether the person is fit to give a sample or an interview which needs an experienced surgeon," he said. He added that there there were three surgeons based at York, three at Harrogate, two at Scarborough and two at Northallerton as well as others covering smaller towns.

"I fear less and less GPs will want to be involved in police surgeon activities because of the increasing workload in general practice, the view of a lot of doctors that they want to spend more time with their families plus the pay isn't very good and they have to be able to stand up in court and back up their findings.

"What is needed is more training and better facilities.

"Some of the custody suites are by no means top grade. A police surgeon sometimes has to say the person cannot stay there - most go to better equipped police stations, some are released.

"People who are intoxicated whether through alcohol or drugs are patients at severe risk of dying and need to be moved."

North Yorkshire Police - the force employs 18 police surgeons - said today it was already carrying out a review of the police surgeons' service and was looking at improving recruitment, particularly among women.

A spokesman said: "A lot of our buildings are very old and are being updated, but we have several excellent custody suites, particularly the ones in Harrogate and York."

He said the main problem in North Yorkshire was the geography of the county and that if one doctor was busy, the next on the list could be miles away.

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