SOUTH Lakeland doctors are threatening to stop treating patients for minor injuries from today (Friday) because of a dispute with their paymasters.

The prospect of long trips to accident and emergency departments is looming after GPs at Ambleside, Windermere and Grange-over-Sands told the Morecambe Bay Primary Care Trust they would pull their minor injuries service unless the Trust formally commissioned them to provide it from this week.

The service allows anyone to walk in for immediate treatment for cuts, bumps and sprains. Without it GPs are only obliged to deal with life-threatening injuries, others will be assessed before being sent on their way to casualty.

The GPs' ultimatum has been issued after what doctors condemned as a "year of prevarication" and "bureaucratic ineptitude" by the PCT the organisation responsible for organising front line care.

"We want to provide the service and are happy to do it but we are not going to be taken advantage of," complained Dr Ian Birket of the Ambleside Health Centre.

After changes to GPs' contracts last April the PCT needs to formally hire practices to provide a minor injuries service but contracts and cash have not been forthcoming.

Without that contract the Trust will not pay the doctors for the treatments they deliver. Ambleside Health Centre is now £30,000 out of pocket.

Dr Birket said Ambleside and Windermere Health Centres, St Mary's at Windermere and the Nutwood Surgery at Grange-over-Sands had continued the service "in good faith" since April on the understanding they would be commissioned but nothing had happened.

"They have been stringing us along," said Dr Birket. "I think they are short of money."

As the Gazette went to press there had been a response to the GPs' ultimatum. However, Joe Chattin, the deputy chief executive of the Local Medical Committee (LMC) an independent body supporting GPs - said it still related to an "intention" to commission without the required commitment doctors needed.

"We have had assurances after assurances but no action has been taken."

Mr Chattin further warned that other practices including Dr Raymond Wood's surgery at Coniston and several Lancashire GPs might also withdraw minor injuries treatment.

Some 700 people were treated at Ambleside last year, which is a key port of call for the many tourists injured on the fells.

Mr Chattin said local doctors felt exploited and believed the PCT was abusing their goodwill because it thought they would not pull the plug on the service.

For the Trust, Alison Morgan, its head of development for primary and community care services, said the PCT was "not dragging its feet" due to a lack of funds and stressed that money was ring-fenced for minor injuries.

The PCT had been dealing as quickly as it could with complicated changes thrown up by the new GP contracts, she said. It had to assess where it was appropriate to commission minor injuries services and ensure Government guidelines on the quality of care were being met.

But Mr Chattin dismissed the PCT's justification for the delay as "eyewash", accusing them of "bureaucratic ineptitude" and likening their efficiency to that of a "Soviet tractor factory".

"Other PCTs haven't had this problem. This is a very simple issue it would take one officer no more than a week to have dealt with it."

Meanwhile, Westmorland and Lonsdale MP Tim Collins called on the PCT to "pull its finger out" to protect a vital service.