A turf war between doctors has broken out in Bristol over contracts to provide out-of-hours care to patients.

An online petition has been signed by 150 doctors urging Bristol PCT not to give a contract to a group of GPs working for the Frendoc co-operative to provide services outside of surgery hours in the north and east of the city.

Instead, the signatories want Bristol PCT to renew its contract with a firm called Brisdoc, the current provider for majority of Bristol.

When a patient needs to see a doctor in the evenings or at weekends, they phone their surgery and the call is then diverted to operators at Brisdoc or Frendoc, who then arrange for a GP to see them.

Bristol PCT has confirmed that Frendoc, which runs services in South Gloucestershire, is the preferred bidder for the contract to run services from Southmead hospital, covering about 100,000 patients.

The online petition has been set up by Dr Terry Kemple, a GP from Horfield Health Centre, the former director of Nordoc, which lost out on a contract to Frendoc in 2004. He also works for Brisdoc and has shares in the company. The petition will be handed to the PCT chairman next month ahead of a final decision on the contract in October.

It says: “North Bristol GPs request that Bristol Primary Care Trust renew its out-of-hours contract in North Bristol with its existing provider Brisdoc because Brisdoc has provided a high-quality, low-stress clinical service that also facilitates teaching and research.

“We do not want Bristol Primary Care Trust to award the contract to Frendoc, which has not enjoyed the same reputation for a high quality, low stress clinical service that also facilitates teaching and research.”

Dr Kemple said the PCT arrived at its decision to grant preferred bidder status to Frendoc based on “scores from an invalid evaluation process” as well as on Frendoc's future plans, rather than its past achievements. He said: “We want the PCT to reassess the evaluation process because they are not comparing like with like.

“My personal view is that Brisdoc in the past have offered a better service, so I would be anxious about the service that Frendoc provide.

“If Frendoc is awarded the contract, many local GPs will decide not to continue providing an out-of-hours service and out-of-hours training for GPs.

“It will mean that doctors from outside of the area will be providing cover which is important in dealing with patients effectively and knowing what local facilities are available means you can prevent people from going into hospital unnecessarily and therefore taking up a bed.

“Frendoc have had an unhelpful attitude to training new GPs and, in my opinion, provide a poorer clinical service.”

A spokesman for Bristol PCT agreed that a meaningful comparison between the two services was not easy because they served very different sized populations.

He said: “We can confirm that Frendoc has been awarded 'preferred bidder' status to extend its service. However, the majority of patients would continue to be served by Brisdoc. The PCT has plenty of evidence to show that both Brisdoc and Frendoc provide a high-quality service.

“Both do regular patient satisfaction surveys demonstrating this.

“For example, in October 2007, 90 per cent of a one per cent sample of patients were satisfied with Brisdoc, whilst 90 per cent of a five per cent sample of Frendoc patients were satisfied with the service.”

Rich Wootten, general manager of Frendoc said the claims were “entirely groundless”.

He said: “Frendoc is a not-for-profit out-of-hours service, owned and run by local GPs, and patient safety is our primary concern.

“Frendoc would like to publicly address concerns raised by the petition regarding the level of out-of-hours training we provide. Frendoc firmly believes that trainee GPs should receive out-of-hours supervision and support by a GP trainer who works alongside them, rather than remotely over the telephone, as has happened in the past.

“And we always have fully qualified GPs at the out of hours clinic which deliver the majority of the patient care.

“As an organisation, we are committed to quality training for all Frendoc staff, we're in the process of attaining Investors in People status and already have quality systems accreditation in place.

“We believe the issues raised by the petition are entirely groundless and we welcome independent scrutiny of our services to prove otherwise.”