MAKING a £400m promise in front of a friendly crowd and the TV cameras is an easy political trick.

It made the Prime Minister look generous and on the verge of solving that problem of never being able to get an appointment at a GP, unless your crystal ball can predict the ‘flu three weeks early so that you book a slot.

But doctors, locally, are already questioning whether the PM’s brave words and offer of cash to push for seven-days-a-week opening will have any effect on the ground.

They say it is not a situation that can be solved by the promise of money – there are just no longer enough doctors willing to be GPs.

The issue is a recruitment crisis rather than a phalanx of lazy physicians that you can only entice off the golf course with a trail of tenners leading back to their surgeries.

Of course, throwing more money might make it a more attractive profession, but will Mr Cameron’s scheme see a real increase in salary or just more money for working more hours?

GPs generally do want to serve the community but like anyone else, they work to live, rather than live to work.

The challenge thrown down by the White House surgery in Chipping Norton for Mr Cameron to visit to see the real situation – as doctors there see it, at least – is one the PM is unlikely to take up.

But maybe he should go along (having booked weeks in advance, of course) to hear those complaints first hand rather than just the adoration of the party faithful in his ears.