The BMA says there is a shortage of GPs

The move came just hours after senior doctors warned it could have a devastating impact on the NHS.

They said the cuts would lead to a drop in the number of new GPs joining the NHS in England.

Health Minister John Hutton has now pledged to "top up" training budgets to ensure their is no drop in the number of trainee GPs.

Budget cut

The government had promised to give Strategic Health Authorities (SHAs) in England an extra �266m for training this year. However, that was recently cut to �166m.

Many SHAs were understood to be planning to cut back considerably on the number of training places for GPs as a result.

GP training places are not in jeopardy Health Minister John Hutton

The British Medical Association said the move would have had a major impact on patient care.

They said the cuts would have meant some parts of the country would have been unable to recruit trainee GPs this year.

The Royal College of GPs had also voiced serious concerns.

Their criticisms prompted emergency talks at the Department of Health on Thursday.

In a statement issued after those talks, Health Minister John Hutton insisted there would be no drop in trainee GP numbers.

"GP training places are not in jeopardy as a result of this funding allocation," he said.

"If the current planned allocation for training doesn't meet the needs of SHAs then we will top-up accordingly.

"We will be writing to SHAs to reassure them of this. We remain committed to recruiting more GPs into the NHS and having exceeded our target of recruiting 2,000 more GPs work continues to recruit even more."

The BMA welcomed the government's announcement.

"It is a positive, sensible and rapid reaction by the Department of Health to the problems that the budget allocations were creating at local level," said Dr John Chisholm, chairman of its GPs committee.