Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the full extent of the crisis in general practice, which has emerged as nothing more than the tip of the iceberg of a health system in crisis.
Objective: This article introduces the systems and complexity thinking that frame the problems affecting general practice and the systemic challenges inherent in redesigning it.
Discussion: The authors show how embedded general practice is in the overall complex adaptive organisation of the health system. They allude to some of the key concerns that need to be dissolved in its redesign to achieve an effective, efficient, equitable and sustainable general practice system within a redesigned overall health system to achieve the best possible desired health experiences for patients.