HUDDERSFIELD MP Barry Sheerman says GPs set to profit from the health reforms could be poised to become millionaires.

Describing the radical reforms facing the NHS, he said that hard-working doctors wanted to treat patients rather than shuffle paper, but many of them could be in line for an American-style health “bonanza”.

Under the plans outlined in the Health and Social Care Bill this week, PCTs will be replaced by groups of GP consortia who will take over their role of commissioning the services we use, from the treatment of coughs and colds to operations.

The GPs will be handed the national health budget – more than £80bn – and be responsible to an over-arching national commissioning body.

Mr Sheerman visited NHS Kirklees on Friday and has been in contact with doctors over the changes.

He said: “It’s pretty chaotic and it’s very disturbing when I hear one group of local doctors saying ‘I’m a doctor and I did not train to become an administrator’.

“I’ve heard a doctor say a lot of us will become millionaires. Some of them will see this as a bonanza, a Californian-type system where members of the medical profession will become super-rich. I don’t think that’s what the reforms should be about and I’m deeply concerned.

“The more I listen to people who know the NHS the more I think it will finish up nothing more than a brand as part of this covert privatisation.

“In 2013 the British public will wake up and say ‘we wuz robbed’. Our NHS will be run by commercial people from overseas health organisations.

“Doctors however are acknowledging that they are going to get very rich indeed.”

Health experts say the reforms are complicated enough, but will take place as the NHS battles to make £20bn efficiency savings.

Sarah Wollaston, a Devon GP and MP on the Health Select Committee likened the “surprise” changes to “someone tossing a grenade into the PCTs”.

Health secretary Andrew Lansley, however, said the reforms were “a carefully staged transition, with the ever-increasing engagement of patients and NHS staff”.