CONSULTANTS will be sent out of hospitals to perform operations in GPs’ surgeries and health centres under proposals to be announced in this week’s white paper.

Patients will no longer need to travel to hospitals for routine procedures such as hernia repairs or the removal of varicose veins and gallstones. Instead, consultants will operate on them in surgeries closer to their homes.

The new “surgery in the community” will free up hospital time for more complicated surgery that requires the sophisticated facilities of operating theatres.

It will also mean that patients run a lower risk of contracting hospital-acquired infections such as MRSA.

Dr David Colin-Thome, the government’s primary care director, said: “We would like investigations such as endoscopies and minor surgery to be carried out outside hospitals. There is no reason why operations that do not require a general anaesthetic should not be carried out in the community.

“We need the skills of hospital doctors and nurses but they do not need to be doing that work in hospitals.”

There is likely to be resistance to the move from hospital consultants, however, who will fear losing time travelling to and from health centres.

Dr Jonathan Fielden, the deputy chairman of the consultants committee of the British Medical Association, said: “This may save money if these minor operations do not require all the back-up and overheads involved in running a hospital. If, however, there are only a small number of patients in a particular area needing the operation then this may not be cost-efficient.”

Fielden added that consultants were in favour of making it easier for patients to gain access to treatment and to prevent them making unnecessary trips for tests but said hospitals were already developing “one-stop clinics” which would help cut down the number of visits required.

There are 45m hospital outpatient appointments in England every year. The government believes a large number of these are unnecessary. It estimates hospital consultations could be reduced by 5m and that numbers could be halved in some specialisms such as orthopaedics, dermatology, gynaecology, ear, nose and throat and urology.

The Department of Health is in discussions with the Royal Colleges, the professional bodies responsible for medical standards and training, to set up pilot schemes of surgery in the community. This will include training of some GPs to carry out minor operations.

In the early stages, consultants will only travel to health centres for follow-up examinations of their hospital patients, but later they will actually perform the operations in the surgeries, once equipment has been upgraded.

The health white paper, entitled Healthcare Outside Hospitals, will also encourage retailers such as Tesco and Boots to run GP surgeries, forcing traditional practices to compete for patients.

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