Patients face paying £25 to visit a doctor as GPs threaten to quit NHS

Family doctors are threatening to desert the NHS and charge patients £25 for an appointment.

Union officials said Britain's 30,000 GPs - among the best-paid in Europe - should consider resigning en masse if the Government persists in trying to get them to work longer hours in the evening and at weekends.

In a leaked document, the British Medical Association said that any walk-out would have to take place soon if it were to be effective, before ministers were able to prepare alternative private provision.

Last night, the BMA claimed that it had already been approached by many doctors asking about the consequences of abandoning the NHS.

GPs' resistance to providing more flexible appointments outside of patients' normal working hours comes despite receiving a new contract in 2004 - after a similar threat to walk out - that sees them working seven fewer hours a week on average.

It also saw the average taxpayer-funded salary of a GP leap 55 per cent to £110,000 - with hundreds earning more than £250,000.

Next month, the BMA will ballot GPs on whether to accept the Government's revised contract, but ministers have threatened to impose it unilaterally if they turn it down.

Matthew Sinclair of the TaxPayers' Alliance said: "Our GPs earn large salaries despite working fewer hours than before.

"They should not be trying to squeeze yet more money out of the taxpayer with threats."

Liberal Democrat health spokesman Norman Lamb said: "The problem is that the Government is promising patients more flexible opening hours without properly engaging with doctors to find the best way to do this.

"Ultimately, it is patients who will lose out if doctors end up leaving the NHS in droves."

The BMA document, leaked to GP magazine Pulse, estimates that going private would result in patients being charged "£20-£25 per consultation" but adds: "Additional fees could be charged for other work."

The authors of the report, by the BMA's GP committee, admit that leaving the NHS would be a "huge step", but add that the threat could carry "real advantages" for the contract negotiations with ministers as well as allowing them to escape "constant political interference".

Describing the need for urgency, it adds: "The Government is clearly building up a 'stockpile' of ( alternative) medical manpower.

"At present, it does not have sufficient resources to replace GPs were they all to resign.

"There are real advantages in the profession threatening to leave now, as we currently have far more leverage than we may have in future."

Richard Hoey, deputy editor of Pulse, said: "The fact the BMA is prepared seriously to consider GPs quitting the NHS shows the degree of anger the Government has provoked with its threat to impose a tough new contract.

"The question is to what extent the BMA is grandstanding, and the degree to which this is a serious threat."

Dr Laurence Buckman, chairman of the BMA's GP committee, said: "We are naturally looking at all the options, including advising GPs of the consequences of leaving the NHS."

A move by GPs would mirror that by dentists, who have been leaving the NHS in droves since ministers imposed a contract on them in 2006.

Patients are now finding it harder than ever to find NHS dental care - with some even being forced to pull out their own teeth.