The seven GPs at Dr Andrew Buist's surgery in Blairgowrie are divided over the new contracts. Last week, two were in favour of working extra hours, but five, including Dr Buist, were against.

The new contract would give Scottish surgeries an extra £19,000 a year on average to provide an extra 30 minutes of consultation time a week for every 1000 registered patients.

GPs largely oppose the deal because they say it will not give patients the better access it aims to provide.

If they turn it down, they will lose on average £6000 a year from their budgets.

Dr Buist, who is joint deputy chairman of the BMA Scottish GPs Committee, said: "We have 8000 patients so we would have to work an extra four hours.

"If we don't, we would lose about £10,000, which would mean that the income of all our doctors would be cut.

"Some of our doctors had already started offering appointments from 8.30am instead of 9am and we were trying to work with the government to encourage things like that."