Ours used to be brilliant - used to get a same day appointment, you just used to come in and wait. It's a large, central London practice, with 13 consulting rooms for the doctors and nurses.
Ten years ago the rooms were all occupied, the waiting room was busy and there was a quick turnaround. Today, you only get a same day appointment if you are in pain (and this can be at another surgery). You can get a phone call the same day from a doctor, who then prescribes you antibiotics over the phone. The consulting rooms are empty, the waiting room is empty. The regular GPs all work very part time - every other Thursday morning when there is an R in the month and a full moon, so if you want to see a specific GP, you can wait six weeks, due to them booking up quickly and their lack of availability. I've seen several locums. One prescribed something for me that the pharmacist told me had been taken off the books years ago, which meant I had to go back to get a different prescription. Another spoke such poor English I couldn't understand what he said. Two years ago, if you needed stitches removed, you could just turn up in the afternoon, and the nurse would do it. I called the day the stitches went in, and was told there were no appointments for over four weeks, which was two weeks after the stitches should have come out. I ended up going to another practice about three miles away to get them taken out.
I had a friend who was Belgian, who had worked here as a GP as well as in Belgium. He was appalled at the salaries that GPs got here (as in they were too high) - GPs in Belgium earn around £50K, have to do all of their own admin and run the practice themselves.
I've just checked the online booking system, and the earliest appointment, with a locum, is in three weeks time. It's no wonder people turn up at A & E, in desperation.