Concerns have been raised about a Sussex-based health advice web site which began operating this week.

The Good Doctor web site provides access to a database of medical practitioners in the UK and includes recommendations from GPs and patient groups.

There is also a feedback section asking visitors to comment on the care they have received for display on the site.

A spokesperson from the British Medical Association said: "We are worried about sites which undermine the position of the GP as a gatekeeper to NHS services. The current GP referral system is the most efficient method available and other countries are looking to follow our example."

The producers of the site, a group of doctors based at the Innovation Centre at Sussex University, have denied the site falls foul of the BMA recommendations.

Dr Daniel Schapira, business operations and medical director, said: "Our site will help people find information on extra care, insurance and private health care. We are not trying to do anything to the detriment of the NHS.

"We are trying to help those people who choose to spend their savings to look after their own health care when the NHS is over burdened and underfunded."

The Good Doctor producers wrote to 14,000 UK medical workers during the last year. Doctors were asked to comment on their own areas of knowledge and recommend colleagues to be flagged up as experts in various fields.

Commended consultants have been marked with a rosette to demonstrate they have been recommended by their peers. The response rate was 40 per cent from surgeons and 15 per cent from GPs.

Dr Schapira said work was ongoing to improve the number of contributions from the industry.

He said: "An individual GP has very limited knowledge of other consultants. This site will help GPs to make referrals, help patients to get the appropriate expertise and it will also help consultants in that they will be receiving referrals of problems for which they are best suited to deal with."

Dr Xavier Nalletamby, chair of the Brighton and Hove Primary Care Group, said he did not recall receiving correspondence from the Good Doctor team.

He said: "I would not have responded to this sort of request because it is not from a public sector activity. I think such information should be provided by a public body that has written standards that can be scrutinised."

A major backer of the project is Alliance Unichem, the pharmaceutical company chaired by former Conservative chancellor and health secretary Kenneth Clarke, through its subsidiary E Moss.

Gerald Gradwell, head of investor relations, Alliance Unichem, said: "The site has been set up by members of the BMA and we have been pleased to support it. We understand concerns expressed by the BMA about other web sites but the Good Doctor site does not propose bypassing the existing system of referral from GPs."

www.good-doctor.com