FAMILY doctors in Bolton are to stop seeing their patients at nights and at weekends.

GPs will not work on call or hold Saturday surgeries from the beginning of next year.

Under a new system, patients phoning their GP out of hours will not be able to see their own doctor -- but will be told to call the Landmark House medical centre in Chorley New Road instead.

The centre will have doctors permanently employed out of hours and will also have nurses available.

People will be asked to wait at Landmark House for treatment, or will be seen at home if they are too poorly.

The decision to stop working at nights and to stop holding Saturday surgeries has been taken by all Bolton family doctors, even though it means them losing £6,000 a year in extra payments.

GPs say they have taken the action because of a new Government contract aimed at modernising the service.

If they were to continue working out of hours, they would have to install a special computer system at home linked to a central database giving access to records. This would cost thousands of pounds and they say they cannot afford it.

GPs would also have to go through a lengthy accreditation procedure, something many of them would refuse to do.

After details of the new Government contract were revealed, GPs across Bolton spoke to each other and decided they should all opt out of doing out of hours work.

There is concern that under the new system, many patients will go to the Royal Bolton Hospital's accident and emergency department, clogging up the system.

A hospital spokesman said it was working closely with the Bolton NHS Primary Care Trust, which manages community health and GP services, to ensure there was a minimum impact on the accident and emergency service and that patients would continue to be able to get the right care.

The Trust is devising a plan to provide "high quality" care for patients in Bolton, but it will not be ready until the end of the year.

A spokesman said: "All the relevant partners -- the hospitals trust, the local authority, GPs, the ambulance service -- are all working towards developing a plan, but we are in the very early stages."

Dr Ian James, a GP at Spring House in Chorley Old Road, has been working on call for 23 years and does not want the system to change.

However, he will be forced to drop his out of hours service because the other partners in his practice wanted to opt out, leaving him in the minority.

He said: "I'm a bit of a traditionalist and think working out of hours is part of the job. I'm quite happy doing calls, but the younger ones seem to want to work set hours and that seems to be the view of the vast majority.

"I think the baby has been thrown out of the bath water with this one and GPs who want to do their own calls should have the freedom to do so."

Dr James was kept busy over Christmas on call. He visited 10 patients at home on Boxing Day and 20 the day after. Depending on the time of year, he says he can visit anything from six patients upwards at a weekend. On Saturday mornings, he usually sees 10 patients at the practice.

His colleague and partner in the practice, Dr Peter Saul, says he has been left with no option but to opt out.

"The new regulations make it impossible for GPs to opt into the out of hours service," he said. "Doctors who want to, have to fulfil accreditation which is very difficult to achieve and then get the computer system to record the calls.

"The Primary Care Trust is charged with lots of other out of hours service, such as pharmacies and dentists, but it is taking on a huge area here. The major issue is will they have enough money to provide good quality out of hours services for everybody?"

Patients will not be affected until January 1 next year.