Getting hold of a GP after midnight in Barnet isn't as easy as it used to be.

All calls after midnight to Barndoc, an out-of-hours GP co-operative based at Finchley Memorial Hospital, are being transferred automatically to NHS Direct.

By 2004, the Government wants all out-of-hours health services to be accessed by one call to the nurse-led advice line and Barndoc has been chosen as a pilot project.

But according to Simon Edwards, of Tudor Road, Barnet, the move makes getting hold of a GP after midnight an unenviable task.

He called Barndoc at the end of January when his five-year-old daughter woke up at 6.30am, violently sick and with a soaring temperature.

She had been diagnosed with pneumonia 36 hours before.

He was diverted to NHS Direct where he spoke to a nurse and was then called back by another nurse who told him to call 999.

"We thought it was outrageous," said Mr Edwards. "How long is this process going to take? What a fantastically laborious process to speak to a doctor who is only a mile away from you. It is an incredibly inefficient way to behave."

Andrew Burnett, director for health improvement at Barnet Primary Care Trust (PCT), admitted that there were some "teething problems" with the service.

"I appreciate that there is a degree of inconsistency that if you phone before midnight you get Barndoc and if you phone after you get NHS Direct."

But he added: "I am quite confident that the service people are getting is appropriate."