Mail on Sunday leads campaign to make GPs see all patients face to face once again

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The Mail on Sunday today launches an urgent campaign to demand that all patients are once again seen face-to-face by their GPs.

Surgeries were ordered by NHS England to move to online and phone consultations at the start of the pandemic, but with the NHS workforce now vaccinated, Covid infections at a low and deaths in single figures, the measures inexplicably remain in place.

The new regime has led to vast swathes of patients feeling all but abandoned by their family doctors, according to more than 1,000 letters and emails received by this newspaper over the past eight months.

GP leaders claim the proportion of appointments being held in person is recovering

But enough is enough: we are calling for health chiefs to change their guidance and reopen GP surgeries before it threatens to cause a spiralling crisis. And more resources should be made available to allow all family doctors to do this safely.

GP leaders claim the proportion of appointments being held in person is recovering: NHS Digital statistics show the number of patients being seen in person in March had doubled to 15 million, compared to April last year.

But figures uncovered by this newspaper show that only a third of these were actually with GPs – the remainder were with nurses and other healthcare staff.

Remote consultations may have been convenient to many. But medical insiders and readers alike have confirmed that GP services in some areas are now so difficult to access by phone that desperate patients are calling NHS 111 – leaving operators with no choice but to instruct them to attend A&E for everyday problems.

Meanwhile, some patients have been hospitalised with conditions which could have been easily treated at home if they had been caught earlier.

In one harrowing account, a 75-year-old grandmother died after sepsis – an immune system condition that requires urgent treatment – was mistaken in a phone consultation for a chest infection.

In another, a grandmother in her 50s developed a swelling in her groin, blisters and unexplained weight loss, but was repeatedly denied an examination. Months later, she was diagnosed with late-stage blood cancer and is now fighting for her life in hospital.

According to Dr Alison George, a GP who chose to begin working in A&E last year after her practice elected to continue with remote appointments, the current situation is ‘failing patients’ and is ‘like practising medicine blindfolded’.

‘This is a catastrophe waiting to happen,’ she said, adding that GPs would undoubtedly miss symptoms, such as problems with walking or weight loss, if they can’t see patients.

Worryingly, even when presented with compelling evidence about the harm the new ‘digital first’ approach is causing, health chiefs have indicated things may never return to how they were. An NHS England paper published in March says that even more appointments should be online in future – with some surgeries making web forms the only way to book appointments. Yet almost half of over-75s – about two million Britons – are not online, according to new Age UK data.

Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK, warned against ‘sleepwalking’ into a world where only the internet-savvy can access healthcare, saying: ‘Online and telephone consultations can work well for some of us, but if you aren’t sure what’s wrong with you, or find it difficult or impossible to manage a video or online consultation, or are too hard of hearing to communicate effectively over the phone, they are a complete nightmare.’

Meanwhile, some patients have been hospitalised with conditions which could have been easily treated at home if they had been caught earlier

The Mail on Sunday’s resident GP Dr Ellie Cannon said: ‘While many larger surgeries have remained open, seeing patients face-to-face throughout the pandemic, others were unable to do so safely. Now the threat of Covid is receding, GPs must be allowed to return to a way of working that suits their communities. Whether an appointment is by phone or in person should always be a shared decision made by the patient and doctor.’

Speaking to The Mail on Sunday’s Medical Minefield podcast last week, the chair of the Royal College of GPs, Professor Martin Marshall, acknowledged that both staff and patients were unhappy.

He said: ‘There simply aren’t enough GPs to provide the kind of care we used to provide. And it doesn’t seem fair to be blaming GPs for what is essentially a lack of resources. Fundamentally this is a crisis which only policymakers can sort out.’

An NHS England spokesman said GP ‘teams’ were offering face- to-face appointments, and added that the NHS would ‘continue to regularly review the process for accessing appointments’.