What's the problem?
The problem isn't a problem if we accept that we are paying doctors £70,000 / £80,000 per annum and the majority of every day is spent telling people they have a cold, listening to the elderly and filling in key performance indicator charts. There aren't enough doctors willing to become GP's because the work is not exactly the sexy end of the profession and they are getting more and more 'targets', longer and longer hours and being expected to be office managers and social workers.
A surgery of 4 or 5 doctors, each one earning around £35 / £40 per hour to listen to the elderly. Down the road, in the local care home, the library or the sheltered accommodation, that same task is valued at £6.50 per hour.
Meanwhile mid twenties office man can't get in to the doctors for 3 or 4 days about his twisted knee, so he troops off to A&E and the government are considering chucking another £20k at doctors to persuade them to open early and Saturdays.
I'm not offering any easy solution here, or peddling a political point of view. Just repeating what I'm hearing. Personally, I haven't been in to the doctors surgery as a punter for about 3 years.