SATURDAY morning surgeries throughout Mid Cheshire will be axed in the new year as working practices for doctors come into force.

The GP contract will have a profound effect on the provision of medical care in the area, with a number of changes to patient care.

Although the contract will not come into force until April, healthcare bosses in Mid Cheshire are preparing to introduce some changes in the new year in preparation.

One of the major changes will be that there will be no Saturday morning GP surgeries anywhere in Mid Cheshire from January. Instead Saturday morning emergency services will be provided by Leighton Hospital in Crewe, at the Victoria Infirmary in Northwich and possibly at a location in Winsford.

The contract by which the doctors will be working gives them the opportunity to opt out of providing out-of-hours care, something which almost all the GPs in the area have decided to do. As a result, the out-of-hours service will instead be provided by the Central Cheshire Primary Care Trust.

Patients needing to see a doctor between 10pm and 8am will have to go to a PCT-run clinic at Leighton. Transport would be provided in some cases to the centre in Crewe, where there will be more facilities available, but doctors will still go out to see a patient if needed.

Patients needing treatment when their surgery is closed will be able to receive care from Victoria Infirmary as well as Crewe and possibly Winsford.

The contract will also see more consistent care for chronic disease management, heart disease management and strokes. Some GPs may also be able to carry out more minor surgery.

Dr Bill Forsythe, chairman of the professional executive committee in Cheshire and a GP working at Danebridge Medical Centre in North-wich, says there will be also be a lot of benefits to patient care.

He said: 'The new GP contract is a complex layering strategy. There are some services which doctors have to keep providing, but there are others which they can opt out of providing. The onus then falls on the Primary Care Trust to provide that service.'

As well as out-of-hours care, doctors can also chose not to provide immunisations, contraceptive care and chronic disease management. However, Dr Forsythe says it is unlikely this would occur in Mid Cheshire.

He added: 'It would be highly unusual for practices to opt out of providing those services. That is almost trying to cover highly unlikely circumstances. It is basically the out-of-hours care that doctors in this area have almost 100% decided to opt out of.'

The contract will encourage practices to provide a wider range of services as GPs which offer a wider range of services will see their profits increase.

It will cover 36,000 doctors in England and has been drawn up in the hope of stopping GPs leaving the profession and encouraging more newly qualified doctors to consider it as a career.