text: Labour will today accuse the Tories of making it harder to see a GP as they attempt to put the NHS back at the centre of the election campaign. The party will launch a billboard advert using the image from the famous 1979 ‘Labour Isn’t Working’ poster, but instead it will warn: ‘The doctor can’t see you now’. The poster features the same long line of people used to illustrate dole queues under Jim Callaghan’s ailing government, but this time places them outside a waiting room. Scroll down for video . The Labour party will launch a billboard advert using an image from the famous 1979 ‘Labour Isn’t Working’ poster, but instead it will warn: ‘The doctor can’t see you now’ Labour will warn that new official figures show 600 fewer GP surgeries across England are now open in the evening and weekends compared to the last election. It will also claim nearly two million more patients are unhappy with doctors opening hours compared to three years ago as they lose access to appointments outside of office hours. Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham will say the figures are a timely reminder of the ‘NHS crisis’ as patients turn to stretched A&E departments as they struggle to get an appointment with their GP on the first working day after the Easter break. But the Tories last night claimed many of the problems stemmed from Labour’s 2004 changes to GP contracts that allowed them to opt out of providing care outside office hours. Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt also said that the government had already begun tackling the issue by making extra funding available, which will mean the number of GP surgeries opening longer will have increased when the next set of figures are published. As it unveils its new poster, Labour will release a new document that it claims shows how David Cameron has failed to implement seven-day opening for GP surgeries as he promised before the last election. The original poster depicts a queue to an Unemployment Office . Mr Cameron repeated the pledge at last week’s televised leaders debate, claiming he wanted GPs to open ‘all the way through the week’. But official figures show the proportion of GP practices offering extended hours has fallen from 77 per cent in 2009 to 72 per cent in the latest figures for 2013/14. Labour said this means 590 fewer GP surgeries are now open at evenings and weekends compared to its last year in office. NHS England’s annual GP-Patient survey of 900,000 patients also shows growing unhappiness with GP surgery opening hours between 2012 and the latest figures for 2015, according to the party. It says there has been an increase of 1.9 million in the number of people saying their surgery is not open at convenient times from 8,393,162 to 10,261,435. Mr Burnham will say: ‘Today, across the country, people will face the frustration of joining a queue to see their GP – in some places the lines will go out of the surgery door. ‘After five years of David Cameron, patients at hundreds of surgeries can no longer get a GP appointment when they need one. ‘At the last Election, he promised to open GP surgeries seven days a week but the reality is that millions more patients are unhappy with opening hours. ‘It is now harder to get an appointment from Monday to Friday too. ‘One of Cameron’s first acts as Prime Minister was to cut Labour’s extended opening hours scheme and scrap our guarantee of an appointment within 48 hours. If David Cameron gets back in, his extreme spending cuts mean he can’t protect the NHS and the queues outside GP surgeries will get even worse.’ Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher acknowledges a crowd on October 13, 1989, at the end of the Conservative Party conference in Blackpool . Mr Hunt last night said that when the 2014/15 figures for GPs opening at evening and weekends are published they will show that the number has actually increased since 2010 because of new initiatives. He said: ‘Labour’s figures are wrong. The Prime Minister’s Challenge Fund already covers 1,100 practices and helps 7.5 million patients see a GP in the evenings and at weekends. Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham will say the figures are a timely reminder of the ‘NHS crisis’ ‘We are extending this scheme to cover over 1,400 additional practices, helping 10 million extra people by this time next year. ‘The next Conservative Government will deliver a truly seven-day NHS, putting right a problem which began with Labour’s disastrous 2004 GP contract.’ A survey by the Mail last year found that nationwide, only one in three patients can secure a same-day GP appointment. More than one in five have to wait longer than a week, while 4 per cent have to wait two to three weeks. A number of surgeries were found to have long lines of patients waiting outside at 7am in a bid to try and get same-day appointments. The Labour poster is based on the famous 1979 poster that turned Saatchi and Saatchi from unknowns into household names. The agency masterminded all three of Margaret Thatcher’s election victories for the Conservatives. In 1999 ‘Labour Isn’t Working’ was voted poster of the century by a jury of ad people assembled by the advertising industry magazine Campaign. Saatchi and Saatchi, which is no longer run by brothers Maurice and Charles Saatchi, was hired by Gordon Brown to handle Labour’s advertising at the last election, but it is not working for the party this time. Labour said its latest poster had been designed in-house.
target: 600 fewer GPs  open in the evenings and at weekends, Labour has claimed .
  Andy Burnham will say the figures are a timely reminder of the ‘NHS crisis’