AN INQUEST in Cambridgeshire has heard how a German doctor working for the GP out-of-hours service accidentally gave a massive overdose of diamorphine, or heroin, to a 70-year-old man.

He subsequently died. His partner claimed the GP appeared hesitant and left the syringes on the windowsill.

His son described this as 'an accident waiting to happen'.

There were other concerns about the same GP. In another case a doctor described his actions as 'unusual and not correct'.

So, is this an inherent problem with the out-of-hours GP service? Could it happen in South Devon?

Complacency is always dangerous, but I cannot see such a disaster happening from our local service, Devon Doctors, or DDoc.

We are the best in the country. Before being accused of arrogance this is not just my opinion.

Recently, patients in every area of the country were surveyed.

The people in Torbay made us the most popular GP out-of-hours service nationally. Thank you.

I am, of course, biased. I work shifts for DDoc, but to compare this to the private company who employed this GP is like comparing a smooth running Lexus to an old East German Trabant. The Trabant was cheaper but a disaster.

Until 2004, GPs were responsible for their patients 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

We shared rotas to allow some time off, but any problem was still the GP's problem. This led to a crisis in recruitment.

No new doctor wanted to become a GP. And so the Government agreed to cut our pay and give the money to the local Primary Care Trusts to provide an out-of-hours service.

Locally we were ahead of the pack. A group of us had come together in 1996 to set up a 'GP co-operative'.

We started as 'Baydoc' – covering patients in Torbay.

Gradually this arrangement was made more professional and became a limited 'not for profit' company.

We merged with the other co-operatives in Devon to form Devon Doctors.

When the local NHS managers took over responsibility for the GP out-of-hours service there were plenty of private firms willing to offer the service.

Luckily they chose Devon Doctors. A commercial private company might have been slightly cheaper but, to quote a cliché, you get what you pay for.

Because Devon Doctors is run by local GPs, we all feel ownership. We want it to work.

Most of the doctors working for Devon Doctors are local GPs. Those who are not are often either retired local GPs or young GPs trained locally and looking for their own practice.

Devon Doctors do not need to fly in doctors from overseas.

Some NHS care trusts decided to go for the cheapest option.

They asked the private company who made the lowest bid to take over the GP out-of-hours service.

As we cannot discriminate across the European Union, GPs from other EU countries were used.

The problem is that General Practice is not standard.

To become a GP in Britain a doctor needs extra training. The job is more complex than general practice in some other countries.

We know that the cheapest builder is not always the best. To protect the public from dangerously cheap builders who cut corners there are building regulations.

Unfortunately we need an equivalent of 'building regulations' for GP out-of-hours services.

Further regulations may mean that the cheapest private companies increase costs but the hope is that everywhere would achieve the standard of Devon Doctors.

We do have a few European doctors but most have done their GP training locally.

Many are now local GPs. When I was working with a German doctor at Devon Doctors he moaned to me about a notice in the hospital.

It had the apostrophe in the wrong place. I don't think we need to worry about the language skills of our European GPs, although I have some concerns about the hospital staff who write notices.