.…. The NHS chief executive will outline new models of care amid warnings of critical shortages of family doctors and fears that the NHS could not cope with a bad winter.  Mr Stevens will suggest that GP practices could open in hospitals, especially in urban areas, where doctors are spread too thinly between a number of traditional local practices.  In other areas, family doctors could band together to run expanded community hospitals, employing hospital consultants and other staff and offering extra services, such as scans, outpatient chemotherapy and dialysis.

The plan follows indications earlier this year that Mr Stevens wants to see a bigger role for “cottage”, community and local district general hospitals.

He will say that there will be no national blueprint, but that towns, cities and rural communities should find models which work for their populations, and ensure services work around the patient.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/11137640/Hospitals-to-set-up-GP-practices-and-keep-the-old-out-of-AandE.html