A LEADING North-East doctor has warned his former schoolfriend Gordon Brown that patients could face a £20 charge to see their GP out-of-hours unless he provides more resources to the National Health Service when he becomes Prime Minister.

Dr George Rea, a GP in Whitley Bay, North Tyneside, and former pupil of Kirkaldy Academy with Gordon Brown, issued his warning at the launch of National Men's Health Week at the Sage, in Gateshead.

It was the first time the event, which started in 2001, has been launched outside London.

Speakers called for greater attention to be paid to men's health at a time when men die earlier than women, have poorer health and are less likely to visit the doctor.

Dr Rea, who is a member of the British Medical Association's national council, made his comments in response to a member of the audience who said the NHS needed do more to provide health care at times more convenient for men.

Mr Brown has hinted that after pay increases for GPs, he expects to see family doctors take a lead on providing more care at weekends and in the evening.

But Dr Rae said the pay deal for GPs was needed to ensure recruitment into general practice and insisted that extra cash would be needed to extend out-of-hours cover. "There would have to be more resources, more funding, more money to make that happen," warned Dr Rae.

Referring to a motion on the agenda of a medical association conference later this week, Dr Rae warned that if the Chancellor pushed this without committing extra resources, the £20 charge to see a doctor "will have a huge probability of coming in".

Barbara Limon, from the Equal Opportunities Commission, said that by October 1, all organisations providing a public service, including charities, would have to demonstrate that they were providing equal services to men and women as part of new legislation to rule out discrimination on the grounds of gender.

Dr Ian Banks, president of the Men's Health Forum, said: "It is a huge piece of legislation. Very few primary care trusts are aware of it. It is going to change things for ever."