RADICAL plans to give East Hampshire GPs more control of their budgets are close to becoming a reality.

Doctors along the A3 corridor are part of a bid to replace NHS Hampshire with five clinical commissioning groups.

The South Eastern Hampshire group will replace the primary care trust as the main commissioner of local healthcare services if the bid is successful.

But it also means that frontline doctors will have a major hand on a £312m budget to oversee healthcare for 200,000 people.

For full story, see this week's Petersfield Herald.