So if general practice is such a great, overpaid job, why are not millions queuing up to do it? Why are GPs so angry? Could it be that it is a hard job and the GPs are constantly denigrated by government and their tame journalists.
Why does Government not have national and local government offices open the same hours they want GPs to open? How will government provide the infrastructure GPs will need if the remain open longer hours. Has the government instructed dentist to open evenings and weekends? ( and do dentists earn more now out of the NHS than they earned before they deserted the NHS ). Does the government want GPs to go the same way as NHS dentistry?

tony le vann, doncaster, s yorks

"Look at the long hours trainee hospital consultants work - and they get paid less than GPs".....remind me what a trainee hospital consultant is?......and just how many hours do they work?

the reason GPs currently get paid so well is because they deserve to. no other primary care body in the world provides the same wide range of services as we do. the primary care systems of many countries around the world are modelled on ours. people often complain that they cant get time off work for GP appointments, yet they are legally entitled to it. also, it may well inconvenience employers to release their employees, but these employers arent expected to be on-call all night, then go to work the next morning as GPs were expected to under the old system.

if you dont think GPs are worth the current salary (which may i point out is miniscule in comparison with premier league footballers!!), may i suggest moving to a country where visiting your GP carries a fee?

gareth ohare, leeds, uk

Being a GP myself, somehow I find these articles far from the real truth and GP Bashing has been a favoutire media hobby. If one notices, whenever there is drab news on the media, hey, lets do some GP bashing. thats going to divert people's attention from the real problems. May I stress on a few issues: 1. The GP contract was done with full cooperation from the Government with most of the points on THEIR suggestions. 2. the frequent mention of the GP salary.. hang on a minute, this is what the GP had deserved for a very long time but started getting their dues only since the new contract. 3. The government had grossly underestimated the Primary care's potential of delivering and service. The Quality points achieved by the Practices are far more than the number crunchers sitting in the Department of Health had estimated. 4. What was the purpose of spending £11 million on a survery which is ignored. About time GP and Dr bashing is counteracted. not a good monday morning read.

Dr I Kundu, Ascot, Berks

Nigel Hawkes is to be congratulated for a perceptive article. It is quite perverse of the Department of Health to complain, when GPs have fulfilled their part of a contract designed to improve the care that the public receives.

Can I suggest he investigates further, and discovers why practice based commissioning is in trouble? In my locality, implementation was delayed because of measures taken to resolve the local trusts' financial difficulties, and the PCT has failed to match GP investment in the scheme.

Dr Stephen Townsend, Southampton , UK

There have been many references to these large incomes. Some GP Practices run on Personal Medical Services contracts, which the government wanted all practices to take up when it first introduced them years ago. These practices may well be making £100,000 after tax. The government must be heavin a sigh of relief that only a minority of practices took this up, yet another one of its money-wasting, short-termist and ill thought out schemes. The remainder of practices are on General Medical Services contracts. The income there may be £100000 gross, but comes to about £60000 net of tax. Without specifying whether it intended it to be taken as gross or net, the government's intention when PCGs were first set up was that GP incomes would one day be equal and in the region of £60000, Yet another foolish error by itinerant administrators.

Monique, Maidenhead, Berkshire

"The typical GP’s waiting-room is not filled with people dragged from their desk or workbench"

The only reason that working people do not crowd GPs' surgeries during the day is because they can't get the time off work to do so and are obliged to squeeze in appointments at 9am or 4:30pm and hope no-one notices their late arrival or early departure at work. It would make the lives of mothers with young children much easier too if they didn't have to take leave from work to take their child to the GP.

Up to now, GPs' hours have been all about the public accommodating them. Other employers are inconvenienced in order to allow GPs to work office hours. But if you get paid a six-figure salary it shouldn't be a major inconvenience to accommodate those who pay your wages. Look at the long hours trainee hospital consultants work - and they get paid less than GPs. The current situation isn't fair either to the public or to those doctors that choose the non-GP route.

MB, Edinburgh,

The Government recently carried out a costly poll of patients views on acessibility. About 85% were happy with the current opening arrangements. The 15% that were not are going to be disproprtionally advantaged if we start opening on a Saturday again. My solicitor and accountant do not do "routine" work at the week-end, even if it might suit some of their clients. If the Govenment want to inroduce competition in providing the Saturday service they will have to enter the marketplace, where their track record on successful negitation is poor. Some patients might WANT Saturday surgeries, but do they NEED them? To persuade a contracted provider to come to my rural location and offer a service equal to that currently provided in the weekdays is likely to cose a fortune in wasted drugs and investigations. The Govenment is mad to pick a fight with us;we wanted the new contract because out-of-hours cover was an unsustainable burden, if you want quality in-hourse care.

DR RICHARD FISHER, Shrivenham, oxon

The reason doctors' surgeries are not filled with those dragged from work is because people who work cannot go, so that is no evidence at all to support your argument. As for occupational health provision or walk-in-centres, there certainly is none here: a university cannot afford to provide the former, and no-one earns sufficient returns to justify the latter.

JS, Cambridge,

Remember seven years ago general practice was on its last legs in many areas - recruitment was abysmal, retention worse. A retirement bulge was looming. The market reacted to avoid collapse of the bit of the NHS that works well.

Mark Oliver, Stafford, UK

How much is a PM paid? I'd prefer to pay a GP. We could replace a PM by a democracy.

Jon Davison, Eltham, UK

It is scandalous that GPs can make so much money when most of them work very limited hours. The BMA is a closed shop and blackmails the country into paying GPs £100,000+ salaries; most of them were born middle class and got to where they are because of private education and comfortable study conditions, not because they are particularly able.

Both my GP and my mother's GPs seem to be hardly ever available. Evening? Forget it? Weekend? Forget it? During the week? They are often on holiday!

Alan, London,

On a regular basis, I diagnose and, treat (prescribe) for my patients. However, I earn less than £30,000 per year for this enormous responsibility. That is because I am not a GP, I am a nurse who has trained (at my own expense) to Masters level.

I am not whinging about my salary but why does the press focus purely on GP's? Many practices did score highly on quality points, however this is largely due to the efforts of nursing staff. The Dept of Health (and press) choose to ignore this well known fact.

It will come as not great surprise to me when the call goes out for increased antisocial hours, it will be provided by advanced nurses and not GP's. If it ever happens, GP's and not nurses will gain the credit.

They scored so highly that they earned a lot more money, for which they were duly castigated by ministers

S Rokesmith, Cheshire, uk

Of course we would all like to have more choice as to when we can see our GP. It would be nice to have evening and weekend appointments but do not blame the GP's for the current situation.

The Government needs to have a good hard look at its own incompetent negotiators who struck the current deal with the GP's in the first place. Who would turn down a contract like the one these fools offered to the GP's?

Richard Wyld, Effingham, UK

Your article highlights the lies that appear to have been promulgated by HMG to undermine general practice. GPs, like myself, have found themselves under a constant barrage of untrue newpaper headlines, demoralising the part of our health care system in which 90% of healthcare occurs, and which is the most cost effective (a face to face consultation with a GP costs the NHS about the same as a telephone call to an NHS Direct nurse!)

You still mis-represent the average income for GPs. The amounts quoted from 1999 and 2004 are not directly comparable. The 1999 amount was purely NHS income, the 2004 included all external and private income. The 1999 amount included the vast majority of GPs, the 2004 only those GPs who have invested and run their own surgeries (often more than £100k).

Prior to the new contract general practice was dying. GPs were promised higher income for better performance. Although this occured in 2004, in 2005 and 2006 GPs have seen a loss in pay.

Grant Ingrams, Nuneaton, UK

There is a world of difference between gross earnings and take home pay. From the figure of 100, 000 pounds the typical GP in company with his partners will have to pay his staff including , tax, NI, the costs of running the practice gas, electricity pay the mortgage etc. That figure of 100, 000 soon diminishes when a reality check enters. FIgures of take home pay from 100k vary 48 to 65 according to number of partners, seniority and number of staff in practice.

John Martin , Bradford, United Kingdom

The NHS resembles the Soviet Union, it's huge cumbersome, inefficient and as a result the public gets a lousy service. Over the years governments have tried to sort out problems and still the system does not work properly as result there are either shortages of doctors, nurses, hospital beds, medical facilities, etc. It never seems to work properly. The state should only partially subsidise medical insurance available to all but those who can afford to pay the full amount. All hospitals and GPs should be made to go private and compete. The result will be a better service where supply meets demand.

Nicolas Kullmann, London, UK