You know how getting a GP appointment currently works. You ring at 8am. You wait on hold for forty minutes. You get told everything's gone. Try again tomorrow.

Labour's solution? Tell surgeries they have to see urgent cases on the same day.

Problem solved! Except not really. Not even slightly.

The British Medical Association had a few things to say about it. Dr Katie Bramall, who chairs their GPs committee, accused the government of creating "unrealistic expectations." She pointed out that nobody from Whitehall actually asked them before imposing the new contract. Just slapped it on the table and said get on with it.

She's got a point about the maths, too. The number of GPs has been creeping up recently, but patient lists have grown faster. There are a fifth more patients per doctor than there were eight years ago. You don't fix that with a press release.

Only one in five patients told the ONS they think GP services have improved this year. Most say they're the same. Plenty say they're worse.

And we've been here before. Blair's lot tried a 48-hour target in 2000. By 2005 it had turned into a shambles. Surgeries were hoarding all their appointment slots for same-day bookings to hit the target, so you couldn't book anything in advance. The target got met on paper. Patients got shafted in practice.

Nobody in government seems to have Googled this before announcing it.

The BMA's GP committee meets Thursday. They'll decide whether to formally challenge the imposition. If they do, it'll be another brawl between ministers and doctors, which Labour can probably do without given they've already managed to annoy the junior doctors, the consultants, and the nurses.

Healthwatch England called it "welcome news for people who have struggled to access GP services." Which is lovely. But welcoming news and actually getting seen by a doctor are two very different things.

Ring at 8am. Good luck.