Bradford Vision today called on a race relations chief to visit Bradford to see for himself the successful work being done to improve relationships between communities and recruit doctors to the area.

The invitation to chairman of Britain's Commission for Racial Equality, Trevor Phillips, follows comments he made addressing a House of Commons inquiry, when he cast doubt on progress being made.

And at the committee, MPs were warned of the "fatal" situation which could develop when ethnic groups had different access to NHS, Council and school services in Bradford.

It was claimed a shortage of doctors in the city could re-ignite racial tensions and Bradford Vision, the district's biggest partnership organisation, had failed to tackle issues of racial tension.

Now Mr Phillips has been invited to a major community cohesion event which will be launched at the National Museum of Photograph, Film and Television, on February 23.

Sally Collins, Bradford Vision's community cohesion director, said: "We were really surprised by his reported comments as they do not accurately reflect the enormous amount of work being done throughout the district by so many people, particularly young people.

"I have invited him to attend the conference to showcase many of the excellent community projects currently taking place in all parts of the district."

She added Mr Phillips was also welcome to speak to partners at Bradford City Teaching Primary Care Trust to hear what was being done to fill vacancies for GPs in the inner city

Dr Peter Dickson, of Bradford City PCT said: "Recruitment and retention of GPs and other health care professionals will always be a difficult issue for inner city areas, with a population who face a range of complex problems, but we remain positive about the future because of the significant progress we have made.

"As a teaching PCT we have developed a range of innovative schemes. One of these, the Bradford Salaried GP scheme has won national recognition for its work in recruiting doctors to the area.

"All are proving successful in developing fresh and ultimately workable ideas to help solve the problem of how to recruit and retain high calibre staff."

Other schemes include bringing in medical students to develop their interest in general practice, investing £16 million in new and social care facilities through the Lift Project and international recruitment, with two GPs from Spain working in the city.