A MARLOW GP has warned that many of the town's doctors would resign from the NHS if the next Government does not make sweeping reforms to the ailing GP service.

GPs at the Doctors House in Marlow, the biggest surgery in Buckinghamshire, are struggling with mountains of paper work and under-funding.

This week it was announced that eight out of ten GPs have threatened to resign across the UK by next spring unless ministers cut back bureaucracy and give them more time with patients.

Dr James Morrow, who was two hours deep in paper work when he spoke to the Free Press, said: "I can't speak for all my colleagues but I would be very surprised if the national figure did not reflect the number who voted that way here. There's enough anger about this to carry this off and if it came down to it I think people here would resign."

He added: "It would be a sad day for the NHS but it could be a good day for GPs as we could start practising medicine to the best of our ability."

The Doctors' House in Victoria Road, Marlow, has 12 doctors serving 24,000 patients. It was the only surgery in the county to close for a day last month as part of a national day of protest at increasing workloads and lack of funding for GPs.

So what would happen if all the doctors at Buckinghamshire's biggest surgery turned their backs on the NHS?

Dr Morrow said: "First I would say we hope this is a hypothetical situation and the Government will negotiate with the BMA. However if they do not a significant number of GPs would tender their resignation, including myself.

"It could be that patients are charged a fee when they come to see us which could then be reclaimed from the Government. Another option could be to go into the private sector."

But Dr Morrow warned if 86 percent of GPs resigned, the Government "wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell" of providing primary care for the population.

He added: "It would certainly bring an end to the National Health Service as we know it. Repeat prescriptions would go out the window, GPs would choose how they worked, when they worked and where they worked.

"GPs would move away from less affluent areas and there would be a movement towards private health care. So the future is fairly apocalyptic. We don't want that and we are sure our patients don't want that."