Skipton doctor David Pearson is leaving the Fisher Medical Practice for a challenging post combining teaching with improving care for patients in inner city Bradford.

Dr Pearson has spent nearly six years in practice in the town, and helped to set up of the out of hours service in 1997.

He has been appointed by Bradford City (Primary Care) Teaching Trust, one of just three teaching trusts in the country, set up by the Government to improve health care in areas of greatest need.

He said: "I'll have my work cut out but I am very sad to be leaving patients and colleagues."

His task will be to improve general practice in inner city Bradford working with lone GPs who have twice as many patients as a Skipton doctor. However, his main role will be training the doctors of tomorrow setting up and co-ordinating medical student teaching.

Dr Pearson said: "The most exciting part is a scheme with Bradford University to take Bradford school leavers with potential and help encourage them to become doctors.

"We will judge potential in a wider way than just A level results. It is easier to get good A level results if you are at a good school but as a result doctors have often been from a very narrow part of society. This perhaps is one reason why people won't work in inner city areas and deprived communities."

In the centre of Bradford there are 28 single-handed GP. Of these 27 are over the age of 55 and likely to retire soon.

Dr Pearson said: "It is very hard at present to find GPs, especially in deprived areas, and Bradford has two of the five most deprived electoral wards in the country. Add to that the challenge of very high levels of cardiac disease, diabetes and rates of death twice that for the Craven area."

Contrasting the conditions in Bradford and Skipton, Dr Pearson says his current patients have a superb new building, far more nurse-led clinics and an improved out of hours system.

He said: "Skipton patients have in Fisher Medical Centre and Dyneley two superb practices - perhaps they sometimes don't appreciate just how good."

A replacement for Dr Pearson has yet to be appointed and Dr Katy Hammon will care for his patients from the end of March until a new doctor is in post.

However Dr Pearson will still be spotted in Skipton as he will continue to live in the town where daughter Emma goes to school. His wife, Lesley, is practice nurse at Grassington.