I was amazed to learn that GPs now prescribe an average of 14 items of drugs and medical kit per person a year, at an average cost of £11 per item - that's £154 per annum. I see three possible explanations for this. The first is that we are a nation of malingerers and hypochondriacs. The second is that GPs routinely over-prescribe (this theory is a definite flyer, given this week's revelations that a fifth of them admit to listening more to drug reps touting the latest branded wonder drug than they do to official government advice). The third, and most alarming, explanation is that the nation's health is in a terminally bad way.

Whatever the reason(s), I am impressed by the tenacity of any citizen who actually manages to see a GP at all, let alone fill up the bathroom cabinet with medicines. I recently decided to fire my theoretical GP and sign up with another because getting an appointment was so ludicrously difficult.

Once a hard-working, accessible practice with a GP who made you feel better the minute you saw her, the surgery had turned into a phantom service run by a "practice manager" who hid from the public and left a bevy of receptionists behind a glass window to keep patients at bay. They would answer the phone using the firm, uncompromising tone developed by people whose thankless job it is to constantly manage expectations downwards.

But the final straw was when the surgery closed down and moved to new premises without even sending out a letter informing its patients. What with GPs earning a staggering £118,000 a year on average under the terms of their new, improved contracts, they can surely afford to stump up for stationery and second-class stamps.

The obstacles put in the way of seeing a GP - ironically, brought on by the massaging of waiting lists to meet government targets - are becoming farcical. A friend had the surreal experience of dropping into her GP's surgery to make an appointment and being told that appointments could not be made in person, only by phone. The receptionist looked totally unruffled when she used her mobile to phone her from the other side of the desk.

Then there are all the reported "Frankenstein" cases of poor souls who have been discharged by hospitals after minor surgery and told to make an appointment to have their stitches removed within five to seven days, only to find that their GP surgery can't see them within this period. Instead, they are offered the vague hope that they might obtain an appointment by phoning in on a set date, at a set time, at which point the phone lines will almost certainly be jammed.

I'm sure that there are many industrious, committed GPs with enormous integrity who are in despair about how their service to their patients has deteriorated and who are mortified at the increasingly craven image they have assumed in the public mind. But it seems to me that while public servants such as the police and teachers have been kept to exacting pay restraints and forced to go along with the prevailing economic rule that we all have to do more work for less money, conversely, doctors have pulled off the brazen coup of actually earning more for doing less.

What exactly do GPs do these days? Certainly not their own out-of-hours cover. Rather than dragging themselves out of bed or off the golf course, we have the absurdity, highlighted this week, of the Polish doctor who commutes some 13 hours by Ryanair, via Prestwick, to Aberdeen in order to act as locum for our pampered GPs.

I imagine that the feather-bedding of GPs is now irritating other parts of the medical establishment, too. NHS Direct and hospital casualty departments are now left fielding the minor, non-acute medical cases that should surely have been dealt with by GPs. Increasing numbers of patients regard phoning their family doctor as a complete waste of time.

You can mount a convincing case that making it hard to see a doctor is a good thing. I seem to remember reading some research that showed health outcomes generally improve when doctors go on strike. Conventional medics persistently play down the often serious adverse reactions that many patients have to the drugs they routinely prescribe. Over-prescription, particularly of antibiotics, is heavily implicated in the emergence of new strains of superbugs and the compromised efficacy of whole classes of key drugs. And there is no doubt that GPs are trigger happy when it comes to issuing prescriptions - step into your surgery with pre-menstrual tension and you may well walk out with a prescription for Prozac. Even an itch is enough to have you put on steroids.

De facto, conventional medics push us into the arms of the alternative practitioners they like to denounce as "quacks" peddling superstition and snake oil. But when it comes to non- life-threatening medical problems, the anecdotal, experiential health advice I can tap into at my local health food store is generally sounder and more effective than anything my GP is likely to offer. Give me the herbalist or the homeopath over the new breed of GP anyday.