PRIVATE firms are already taking over NHS services under a controversial shakeup expanding rapidly across the region, a Tory MP and former doctor said yesterday.

The changes, under which groups of GPs will “commission”

care, instead of NHS managers, may have been designed to speed up privatisation, Dr Sarah Wollaston said.

However, Prime Minister David Cameron said yesterday: “The idea that all these changes amount to privatisation is simply not true.”

They came as the Government announced a further four trial schemes across the North, under which commissioning powers will be handed to GP consortia.

The expansion means 1.7 million people in the region attending 241 GP surgeries are already covered by the shake-up.

Dr Wollaston, a Tory backbencher in Devon who helped carry out a report by the Commons Health Select Committee, said ministers had “tossed a grenade” into primary care trusts (PCTs), which will be abolished by 2013, costing up to 4,000 jobs in the region.

Warning the trusts were haemorrhaging staff, the former GP said: “That is happening just at a time when expertise is needed to guide the development of the emerging consortia.

“If the expertise is not there in the remains of the PCTs, inevitably they are going to have to turn to the private sector.”

In County Durham, Dr Stewart Findlay, a spokesman for the GP consortia, agreed such consortia would “shop around for the best deal”, whether that was from the public or private sector.

Dr Findlay, a partner in the Bishopgate Medical Centre, in Bishop Auckland, said: “That will happen to a huge extent.

But does it matter to the patient, who wants the highest quality service they can get?

“The NHS needs to be costeffective and efficient. The trouble with PCTs is they grew and grew to become too bureaucratic, so it became difficult to take a very simple decision.”

However, Dr Findlay said his consortia had no current plans to turn to a private firm to commission care.

The Prime Minister faces a growing backlash against the changes, the biggest shake-up since the health service was created.

Yesterday, six health unions, including the British Medical Association, warned the speed and scale of change was potentially disastrous.

Most concern centres on plans to allow private firms to bid for services, which threatens to force NHS services out of business.

However, Mr Cameron insisted there was no alternative to the “modernisation”, which would make net savings within two years.

Insisting there was a “lot of enthusiasm” among GPs, he said: “The idea that all these changes amount to privatisation is simply not true. I think we’ve just got to grow up over this debate.

“Every year, without modernisation, the costs of our public services escalate.

“Demand rises, the chains of commands can grow, costs may go up, inefficiencies become more entrenched.”