FROM January 2005, the four doctors in the Central Dales Practice in Wensleydale will no longer provide 24-hour cover for their patients, a stunned parish forum at Carperby heard on Wednesday evening.

Chris Long, chief executive of the Hambleton and Richmondshire Primary Care Trust, told the parish councillors from mid and upper Wensleydale, that in April 2004 general practitioners would sign new contracts with the NHS which would not bind them to 24-hour coverage.

The PCT would then have until December to organise a doctors' co-operative which would cover out-of-hours emergency calls, including weekends and bank holidays, for the practice, which has about 4,500 patients and stretches over 650 miles of hill farming country.

There was considerable concern about the distances involved, especially if a doctor was urgently needed at or around Hawes and a GP had to travel from as far away as Easingwold, particularly in winter.

Mr Long said the trust planned to have a base in Leyburn and also perhaps to have personnel at the Aysgarth surgery on Saturday and Sunday mornings. It was hoped to have a team comprising a doctor, a district nurse and a paramedic, but nothing had yet been finalised.

The PCT was considering paying for a taxi service to ferry elderly or infirm patients to that clinic. And the doctors would be provided with a highly-qualified driver and a vehicle equipped with advanced technology communications equipment so that even while they were on their way to distant rural homes, guided by a satellite navigation system, they could be talking to other patients.

He pointed out that the surgeries at Leyburn and Reeth had already been part of a co-operative out-of-hours scheme for about five years, and that the number of emergency out-of-hours calls in the Dales each year was not high.

The parish councillors were adamant that they did not believe patients should be referred to a doctor in Cumbria under any co-operative scheme.

County Coun John Blackie pointed out that about 600 people had turned out for a meeting six years ago to try to stop the two doctors' practices in mid and upper Wensleydale being merged into one because they were worried about the out-of-hours service.

"This is one of the saddest parish forums I have attended," he said. "Our peace of mind has been destroyed."

Neither he nor the parish councillors were pleased when they were told that, on occasions, the ambulance might be based at Leyburn rather than at Bainbridge to help cover a wider area when other crews were busy.

District Coun Wendy Morton said: "We are being penalised because we live in a rural area. We already suffer because the ambulance response times are not as good."

"We can't just rely on volunteers to provide us with health care," she added, referring to the proposed expansion of the first responders scheme into Middleham, Carperby and Aysgarth.