THE public can have its say on controversial plans to shake up the NHS at a meeting in Abingdon next month.

The Government plans to hand control of patient commissioning, and with it 80 per cent of the NHS budget – about £100bn a year – to doctors.

The Oxfordshire GP Consortium was named in January as one of the Pathfinder schemes, charged with testing GP commissioning.

Now the plans, which have sparked fierce opposition, will be discussed at a forthcoming public meeting.

It will see GPs speaking about the plans and answering questions.

Dr Prit Buttar, a GP at The Abingdon Surgery, said: “I’m all in favour of public meetings but I fear what will happen is that the meeting will get hijacked by people who have entrenched positions and are paying scant regard to the facts.”

All 152 of England’s primary care trusts, which currently control the budgets, will be scrapped, along with 10 strategy health authorities.

It is predicted 24,500 jobs will be lost, 21,000 of them through redundancy.

NHS Oxfordshire, based in Cowley, employs 300 people and will be one of those scrapped.

The changes will cost £1.4bn to implement but the Government claims it will save the NHS more than £5bn by 2014/15. Last week Goring GP Dr Stephen Richards was picked as the Oxfordshire consortium leader.

The public meeting will be held at Abingdon Guildhall, Abbey Close, between 7pm and 9pm on Wednesday, May 25.