What has happened to our GP services?

Unlike hospital doctors, nurses, teaching staff, police, firefighters, supermarket and shop workers - the key workers who have remained on the front line over the past difficult, eighteen months - GPs, who I feel sure are still being paid, seem to be noticeable by their absence.

The possibility of a face to face consultation appears to be non-existent and if one is lucky enough to get through to the surgery, it can still be a wait of anything up to two weeks for a doctor to get back to you for a phone consultation.

Furthermore, this inadequate type of consultation rarely produces a positive result. The answer seems to be, if in need of help, go to an already vastly overburdened A&E. In fact, this was actually suggested to someone by a surgery receptionist.

I ask again, where are our GPs and can we, any more, rely upon this sector of an otherwise wonderful NHS?

Vivien Unwin Southampton