8 in 10 want to see their GP face to face

Britons don’t want to be fobbed off with a remote consultation

The Daily Mail’s campaign to win the right for all patients to have face-to-face care from their family doctor has received a tidal wave of public support.

Some 85 per cent of Britons believe they should be entitled to an ‘in-person’ appointment with their GP – and not be fobbed off with a remote consultation by phone or video.

More than half (53 per cent) say they struggle to obtain a face-toface appointment, with nearly three in ten (27 per cent) who have asked to see their GP in person in the past year saying they have been told no.

More than four out of five (83 per cent) say they prefer traditional inperson consultations, and nearly two thirds (65 per cent) say illto nesses are likely to get worse if they are treated remotely.

The findings of the JL Partners survey for this newspaper come after Britain’s top GP sparked controversy by defending the huge rise in online consultations by GPs since the pandemic outbreak.

Before the pandemic, four in five GP consultations were in person, but the latest figure for July is less than six in ten.

Martin Marshall, chairman of the Royal College of GPs, said Covid safety curbs and high demand meant it was impossible for family doctors offer all patients an in-person appointment just because they would ‘like’ one.

But the Mail survey reveals the public overwhelmingly rejects his argument. A masas sive 95 per cent say ‘face-toface’ consultations result in a more accurate diagnosis – and 75 per cent say the success of the vaccine rollout means Covid is no longer a valid reason for GPs to decline to see people at local surgeries.

Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said: ‘I hope everyone from GPs to government will listen to this poll, as it shows what the public really want. They must act on it.

‘There is no way that Covid can any longer be seen as an excuse to stop holding many in-person appointments.’

Oncologist Professor Karol Sikora, former director of the World health Organisation’s cancer programme, also called on ministers to take action on the basis of the Mail’s poll.

he said cancers would be missed if GPs did not get back to seeing more patients face to face, adding that doctors were using Covid was an ‘excuse’ not to go back to prepandemic levels of in-person appointments.

Professor Sikora said: ‘The Government has got to listen to this poll and get GPs back to normal. They must insist all patients with new symptoms must be seen in person.

‘It’s very difficult to assess people over Zoom and the telephone, and you will miss cancer diagnoses. If symptoms persist, the cancer will eventually be diagnosed – but it could happen after a delay of several months.’