VICTORY FOR MAIL AS GPs FREED FROM COVID RULES

Javid to tear up social distancing in surgeries to give thousands more face-to-face appointments

FAMILY doctors will be told to tear up Covid rules to allow them to see more patients in person.

The move is part of a package from Health Secretary Sajid Javid to address the crisis in GP access highlighted by the Daily Mail.

To be published in the coming days, it will focus on cutting bureaucracy, giving doctors more time to see patients face to face. GP surgeries will be given new Covid guidance, including scrapping the two-metre social distancing rule which ended months ago elsewhere.

Onerous ‘enhanced cleaning’ regimes will also be relaxed in the shake-up.

A Whitehall source said the ‘small minority’ of GPs resisting a return to face-to-face appointments would be ‘held to account’. The decision is a major

victory for the Mail’s campaign, Let’s See GPs face to face, which has detailed the devastating decline in the number of patients able to see a doctor.

Latest figures suggest that fewer than 60 per cent of GP consultations in england are held in person, compared with 80 per cent before the pandemic.

Yesterday it emerged that the situation is likely to be even worse, as official statistics have incorrectly classed telephone consultations as face to face.

Campaigners point out that in-person appointments are vital to pick up on symptoms and conditions that might otherwise be missed. there are also fears that patients may be ignoring potentially dangerous issues because of the access problems.

A Whitehall source last night said the new package would see ministers work with the profession to reverse the decline seen over the past two years.

the source added: ‘GPs are doing a great job under difficult circumstances – we are full of praise for the vast majority who are doing their best for patients. We have been working closely with the NHS on a plan to support GPs and deliver better outcomes for patients. We all want the same outcome and by working together we can achieve it but we will hold the small minority letting the side down to account.’

Mr Javid is said to believe that social distancing in GP surgeries fails to reflect the success of the vaccination programme. Many sites are still enforcing the two-metre rule, drastically reducing capacity in waiting rooms. Hospitals switched to a one-metre rule last month.

GPs will have their workloads eased through hospitals writing more prescriptions and sickness notes for workers.

Pharmacies could also be asked to do more to help, including delivering extra vaccinations.

Doctors’ representatives have bridled at suggestions they are trying to avoid seeing their patients.

Professor Martin Marshall, chairman of the royal College of GPs, said it was no longer possible to see everyone who would like an in-person consultation.

‘Patients will get used to it,’ he said last month. ‘I don’t think we’ll go back to 80 per cent of consultations at general practices being face to face.’

Sources declined to comment on what action would be taken against GPs who refused to co-operate, but said ministers had a number of ‘levers’. Mr Javid is thought to have considered potential financial sanctions.

the Mail revealed this week that patients face a ‘postcode lottery’ when seeking GP access.

Official figures showed the average number per family doctor had risen 5 per cent to 2,038 over the past six years.

In some areas the total was nearly 3,000 patients per GP, in others just 1,600.

responsibility for social distancing rules in GP surgeries rests with the uK Health Security Agency, formerly Public Health england.

THROUGHOUT the pandemic, nurses, hospital doctors and countless others have tirelessly dealt with people face to face.

So it is indefensible that even now, months after lockdown ended, the one place not yet operating normally is the GP surgery.

Suspicions have grown that doctors’ unions are secretly trying to make virtual consultations, brought in to stop Covid spreading, the standard care option. But they could justly argue that ongoing social distancing restrictions limited the number of patients allowed in waiting rooms.

Today, in a major victory for the Mail, we reveal that Sajid Javid will rip up this controversial two-metre rule in guidance to be unveiled in the coming days.

Permitting more people into clinics means GPs can carry out more in-person appointments – a key demand of our campaign.

Of course, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with phone or online diagnosis when doctors are under immense pressure.

But there are striking drawbacks. Those most in need of doctors – the elderly – are least likely to use technology, deterring them from reporting signs of illness. And too many families have lost loved ones early because deadly symptoms can be missed without a physical examination.

This shake-up is a fine start by the Health Secretary. It sets the tone that patients – not the NHS, nor GPs – must come first.