Doctors may have to alter their working hours radically by opening their surgeries in the evenings and at weekends as part of a shake-up of the NHS.

Doctors to stay open longer in NHS shake-up - Telegraph

Extract:

"Doctors will have to alter their working hours radically by opening their surgeries in the evenings and at weekends as part of a shake-up of the NHS being considered by Gordon Brown.

The Chancellor - who will learn today whether he is to face a Left-wing challenge for the Labour leadership - could change GPs' contracts to encourage them to tailor opening hours more to busy working people.

Mr Brown, the favourite to succeed Tony Blair, moved his campaign up a gear yesterday saying more needed to be done "to show people that the health service is going to move into the modern era and is there for people when they need it". GPs earn on average about £106,000 a year but to the fury of many patients most do not open their doors outside the hours of 8am and 6.30pm.

Mr Brown also wants more "walk-in" health centres near places of work, pharmacies providing routine services such as blood pressure tests and a system of electronic repeat prescriptions.

Under contracts introduced three years ago, GPs received a 22 per cent pay rise but were able to opt out of delivering out-of-hours care."