PATIENTS in areas suffering from GP shortages will be able to force the recruitment of private doctors, under Government plans unveiled yesterday.

They could trigger action by signing a petition demanding their primary care trust bring in either a private medical company or a voluntary group to fill the gap in NHS care.

The trust will then face a deadline - which could be 12 months - to explain how it plans to recruit more GPs from "any willing provider".

The powers will be introduced in areas recognised as "under-doctored" by the Department of Health.

But the plans are likely to be opposed by some Labour MPs, suspicious of the creeping privatisation of the NHS.

The worst-hit area is Easington, County Durham. It has only 46.5 family doctors per 100,000 patients, compared with more than 70 in parts of the South.

South Tyneside (47.4), Hartlepool (47.5), Sunderland (48.8), Derwentside (49.9), Middlesbrough (50.1), Gateshead (50.6), Newcastle (51.4) and Sedgefield (52.2) are also struggling.

Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt said private firms were needed because trusts on their own do not have the "size or clout" to tackle health inequalities.

She said: "There is no issue of principle here. It is simply about ensuring we get the services we need to the people who need it most."

The White Paper, called Our Health, Our Care, Our Say, aims to make NHS care more accessible by moving services from large acute hospitals into the community.

New practices and walk-in centres are likely to include breakfast and tea-time surgeries, opening from as early as 7am and until as late as 10pm.

John Canning is a Middlesbrough doctor who represents North-East medics on the British Medical Association's national GP committee.

He said: "We are in danger of throwing out the thing that the NHS is good at, providing continuity of care to people with long-term conditions.

"This seems to be a commercialising agenda which is moving care into the private sector, to a more corporate service."

Dr Canning said the Government had missed an opportunity to boost GP services in the North-East.

Figures published in 2004 showed that 103 GP vacancies were advertised in County Durham and Tees Valley between April and March 2003.

Dr Canning said: "The Government had the opportunity with the introduction of new GP contracts to put money into the areas of greatest need, but this was not properly funded."

A spokesman for Easington Primary Care Trust said it was too early to comment on the White Paper.

But he confirmed that a German GP, Dr Maria Uehlein, was recently recruited, leaving two vacancies in the area.

He said one vacancy would be filled tomorrow and the other was lined up to start work once a new surgery was completed.