A RENOWNED doctor who is stepping down because he no longer wants "to play the game" has said the NHS is reaching breaking point.

Dr Prit Buttar will be retiring from Abingdon Surgery after 16 years in December and has criticised politicians for ignoring the needs of the medical profession.

Although the 56-year-old said he is at a happy stage in his personal life – with grown-up children and a paid mortgage allowing him step back – the Stert Street doctor says the profession is not the one he originally joined.

His criticism is largely aimed at attempts to make the NHS a seven-day-a-week service, which he says is putting huge strain on the service.

The father-of-two, who started in medicine over 30 years ago, said: "The dominoes are lined up and they are going to fall.

"The trouble is, the Government will not back down on their promises of a seven-day-NHS and, even if they woke up tomorrow and said ‘here is all the money you need’, it will be too late – we are already in trouble.

"We needed the funding years ago, I have been bleating on about this for years."

Dr Buttar has been vocal in the past about the move, which the Conservative Party says is part of its manifesto, and argues politicians are more interested in elections than the long-term need of patients.

He added: "There are two categories of people who use the NHS. You have the convenience group, that is made up of young, fit, healthy people that just need to nip into the surgery to renew medicine or have a quick check up.

"Then you have the continuity group, who have chronic, complex illnesses, where it is important they see the same person so they don’t have to explain themselves every time they visit the surgery.

"Because most of the ‘swing voters’ are in the convenience category, that is who they’ve focused on, which is why they have come out with all these promises of a seven-day NHS.

"But if you cannot even properly resource five days, how on earth are you going to do seven?"

Dr Buttar says he typically sees between 15 and 20 patients in the morning, which is not uncommon. Typically UK GPs see between 30 and 40 patients a day.

He added: "The system is just not safe anymore.

"Ninety per cent of patient contact with health care is done by GPs and last year our share of the NHS budget was less than seven per cent.

"It is a perfect recipe for making it impossible, you could not design something more likely to fail."

These problems, Dr Buttar claims, are underpinned by a major shortage of people wanting to be GPs.

He said: "A friend of mine who works on the GP training scheme says 40 per cent of positions are unfilled. Then you have people like me, who only have a few years before they retire, who are not prepared to stay on.

"They are having to replace me with two part-time partners because it is so hard to find someone who wants to be a full-time GP."

Dr Buttar will keep his hand in, working part-time in Scotland before stopping completely when he turns 60.

Over the course of his career he spent five years working as a medical officer in the army, leaving in 1992, and has written a number of books on military history.

Despite his anger at the system, he says he will miss his patients.

He said: "They are like my family. I have watched my patients grow from awkward teenagers into successful young adults.

"It is a shame it has to end with a sour taste in my mouth."