OUT of hours GP cover will be once again managed by the borough's health bosses.

In 2004 Bolton's Primary Care Trust passed the responsibility for providing urgent medical care from the GPs to CMEDS, a private organisation owned by local doctors and based at Landmark House.

The current contract with the company will expire at the end of December and PCT chiefs want to bring the service in house.

Tim Evans, chief executive of Bolton PCT, said: "It's a time of change in the field of urgent care and out of hours care and we wanted to make sure we had maximum flexibility to adapt quickly to changing needs and circumstances.

"We need to integrate out of hours GP services with other provisional developments, such as increasing our walk-in centre services, providing more primary care at accident and emergency and developing an urgent care centre with diagnostic facilities."

The PCT have vowed to work closely with CMEDS to ensure a smooth transition.

GPs who work on a sessional basis for CMEDS, seeing and treating patients out of hours, are already paid by the PCT for this work and will continue in this role.