Face to face, not digital, GP consultations should be the standard

FOR NHS 24 chief executive Angiolina Foster, “increasing the digital presence of our service offering is a way of getting closer to citizens” (“NHS helpline plan to expand use of digital consultations”, The Herald, August 30).

It’s not just the abstract managerialspeak that makes this utterance so alien to medical practice; it’s the fact that, from the point of view of the medical consultation, it’s the polar opposite of the truth. I would find a digital consultation very useful if my patient were on the International Space Station. But here on planet Earth, a face-to-face flesh and blood medical consultation is the gold standard. Why strive for anything less?

Doctor and patient both need to realise that the medical consultation is an “all-or-nothing” phenomenon. It requires total commitment and total trust from both parties. Never seek half a consultation in any form; it’s a con.

This is why the British Medical Association is advocating that GPs offer patients 15-minute appointments and no more than 25 of them in a day. It’s the core business of general practice.

GPs can do this if they restrict their list size to approximately 1,000. They will earn less, but have a chance to get a life. Then the Government will have to encourage the medical schools to stop making entry into their undergraduate programmes so absurdly difficult. Dr Hamish Maclaren, 1 Grays Loan, Thornhill, Stirling. DOUGLAS Mayer (Letters, August 30) suggests that politics should be taken out of the NHS, a suggestion in which there is a great deal of merit. It was of course a proposal made by Scottish Labour’s then leader Johann Lamont in October 2014, when she said: “My offer to Nicola Sturgeon and the other leaders is to fix our NHS by putting party politics aside and working together in the best interests of the people of Scotland. I fear that if we do not take this opportunity, our NHS will continue to decline and patients will pay the price.”

Unfortunately, the idea was ignored – presumably because the First Minister has other priorities, like visiting EU capitals to hold meaningless discussions with minor functionaries. Peter A Russell, 87 Munro Road, Jordanhill, Glasgow.