A GP has blasted plans to send patients to a private firm on the NHS as "creeping privitisation".

Dr Robert Grayson, from Great Harwood Medical Centre, Water Street, spoke after East Lancashire's four top doctors opposed the plans.

South African firm Netcare is to assess and carry out minor procedures for 45,000 East Lancashire patients in a £23million contract.

Bosses said this will slash waiting times but hospital doctors said it would take vital services away from NHS hospitals.

A leading manager said this week that GPs back the scheme.

But Dr Grayson, 36, said: "As an East Lancastrian GP, I am only too aware of this creeping privat-isation which is just the top of an ingeniously implemented slippery slope.

"These contracts are not cost-effective.

"They are a cunning Government sweetener to ease the introduction of the profit-making sector into healthcare provision."

Patients are already treated in private hospitals under the NHS. Changes to Government policy mean patients are offered one private provider as well as three or four NHS hospitals for their treatment.

Dr Grayson, who has been at the practice for two years, said: "Most of my patients who have experienced this process have been invariably impressed by it.

"But having one's minor surgery carried out through an artificially-engineered contract with the private sector, in the plush confines of a rural independent hospital is always going to beat the consumer experience' which can be provided in an NHS hospital."

He spoke after Janet Ledward, the director of commissioning at Blackburn with Darwen NHS Primary Care Trust, said: "They (GPs) are supportive of it (the plans).

"We need to work as a system to make sure we make the best use of this resources for the benefit of patients locally."