We all work anti-social hours - why can't GPs too?

Yet the next day I was reminded how it is the bog standard parts of our health system that frustrate us most. A consultant has finally said I can get physio on the NHS - this after 20 years of almost constant back pain. But two months later I still don't have a referral. My GP is the only person who can help.

Here we go again, I thought. Where can I find a free half-day to fit in an appointment? My surgery, like the majority of those in Britain, opens only within normal working hours. Call me a workaholic but I feel bad about taking a big chunk of time off work to spend five minutes with my doctor - when I'm not even ill.

Everyone has a similar tale. One friend just paid for a routine test because the only time slots her surgery offered didn't suit her employers. Like so many professional Londoners, she was loath to be labelled a slacker.

In recent days members of the BMA have been trotting out the tired old line that most patients are happy with surgery provision. If they have a job, I can guarantee they are not, and doctors should stop implying that the priorities of working people do not matter.

In London, the problem is worse thanks to commuting time and the pressure of jobs that keep our country's economic heart beating. It is part of the reasoning behind the proposed network of polyclinics - super-surgeries where grouped resources should provide a more accessible, efficient service, if one that's less personal. Many GPs oppose polyclinics and in principle, so should I.

After all, wouldn't it be nice to build up the kind of caring relationship we all used to have with our family doctor? But too often you're grateful to see anyone at all. My last practice was by no means unfriendly, yet I saw a different doctor virtually each time I visited, many of them locums.

Doctors live in the same society as the rest of us, so why the refusal to acknowledge the pressure of our modern lives? Being able to see a GP outside office hours should be an absolute given, not something to be fought over by petulant doctors who earn upwards of £100K a year.

As for GPs being forced to work a few extra hours, I suspect public sympathy is limited. Why should doctors be immune to the changes in working practices which have seen the rest of us injected with a virus of insecurity, long hours and various strains of workaholic behaviour?

We don't live in a Dr Finlay's Casebook world any more. To the legions of stressed Londoners who can't see a GP when they need one, to pretend we do is a sick joke.