‘Protect the NHS’ message had bad consequences, says GP chief
“PROTECT the NHS” was an unhelpful message, Britain’s leading GP has said, as he warned of the risks of virtual consultations amid a rise in suspected cancer cases.
Prof Martin Marshall, chairman of the Royal College of General Practitioners, said family doctors were dealing with a 30 per cent rise in specialist referrals after the Government’s messaging drove patients away during the first wave of the pandemic. He added colleagues were increasingly likely to encounter patients with cancerous growths.
Prof Marshall also warned of the risks of virtual consultations, after face-toface appointments fell from approximately 75 per cent to just 10 per cent at the start of the pandemic.
In July the shift was welcomed by Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, who said that in the future all consultations should be virtual unless there was a “compelling reason”.
But Prof Marshall said yesterday that in many cases speaking to patients over the phone or by video hindered diagnosis.
He accused Mr Hancock of “overplaying his hand” when it came to the benefits of technology.
Face- to- face appointments have increased since the end of the first wave of the pandemic, recovering to 56 per cent of all consultations last month, according to NHS figures released yesterday.
The data also showed that surgeries saw 1.5 million more same-day appointments in the month compared with September 2019. However, previous figures have indicated that the number of urgent two-week cancer referrals for NHS patients was down by at least 70 per cent during the height of the lockdown.
Prof Marshall said: “There was a period where patients weren’t coming to see us for a number of reasons.
“I think partly because they were worried about picking up an infection if they came into a health facility and partly because they took on board the message to protect the National Health Service.
“I’d say, in retrospect, that wasn’t a very helpful message.”
While acknowledging that telephone and video consultations could be positive, particularly for previously hard-toreach groups such as adolescents, he said the “jury is out” on what part they will play in the future. “I think we’ve got a long way to go as a speciality in understanding how to be effective clinicians when we’re conducting remote consultations,” he said.
“We are potentially taking risks by not seeing people face-to-face and that’s a big decision that needs to be made by clinicians in conjunction with patients.”
Prof Marshall also said that GPS and community public health teams had been underutilised as part of the Government’s test and trace programme, which has a heavy reliance on private outsourcing companies.