Edited sentence: Also, GPs are private practitioners, being self-employed, under contract to the NHS.For example, under their new national General Medical Services (GMS) contract GPs, on average, earn more than £80,000 a year for a 8am to 6pm Monday to Friday job (with no out-of-hours work, unlike before this contract came into force in April 2004).So the NHS relies on private healthcare provision, despite its socialist roots