WHAT a sad reflection of our medical services when a number of GPs from East Quay Medical Centre, Bridgwater have to parade themselves in front of the camera looking extremely miserable, forlorn and very sanguine. What are they complaining about?

Apparently they have many bees in their bonnet about the possibility of Gordon Brown instigating a new programme of larger health centres offering a greater service to the public, which let's face it, can't be a bad thing?

Once can have very little sympathy for their concerns, when in 2004 they were paid £1 and three-quarter billion over the odds by an incompetent health minister who made a mistake in her arithmetic! Not satisfied with an individual GP's salary of well over a £100,000 including seniority and temporary residents payments, they opt out of weekend and evening work, declaring they are only going to work four and a half days a week.

Should a patient require medical treatment outside normal hours, this has to be provided, not at the GP's expense, but by you and I, the taxpayers, at huge expense.

GPs have never any fear of redundancy or capital expenditure required for premises extensions. Everything is going for them with the support of an excellent trade union, the negotiating powers of the BMA are second to none.

But, there is one cloud on the horizon and that is competition, something they have never previously experienced. Could this be their bete noire?

Maurice Jackson Church Lane Brent Knoll