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Patients urged to go online instead of seeing their GP
PATIENTS are to be discouraged from seeing their family doctor under plans to revolutionise the health service in Scotland.
Instead of visiting their local surgery in the way patients have done since the days of television family medic Dr Finlay, thousands will be issued with health advice and prescriptions by email.
In many cases doctors will not see patients but will simply diagnose via the internet without any form of physical medical examination.
Only the most serious cases would warrant a visit to the surgery, with coughs and colds and minor aches and pains dealt with entirely via websites and email.
The move could substantially ease the pressure on the NHS by cutting the number of patients turning up at doctors’ surgeries and A&E.
Those pushing ahead with the initiative even compare it to the convenience of online banking and claim it will ‘empower’ patients to look after themselves.
But there are fears it removes a doctor’s ability to diagnose through examination, with some politicians warning that face-to-face appointments must not be replaced, especially for some patients such as the elderly or those with complex health problems.
Scottish Conservative health spokesman Jackson Carlaw said: ‘Many consider a face to face appointment the most helpful way of doing things. It’s important, amid technological advances, that we don’t lose patient-doctor contact for those who still need it.’
The ‘e-consulting’ scheme will target patients with common condi- tions such as coughs, headaches and sore throats. The GP surgeries taking part would promote their ‘virtual general practice’ service on their websites.
The aim is to encourage patients to use the ‘virtual’ GP surgery as a first port of call before turning up in person or phoning to make an appointment.
Patients can click through links on the website which either give them more information on how to look after themselves, or give them the option to fill in a questionnaire – detailing their symptoms.
Surgery staff, such as doctors and nurses, respond to the questionnaire and can either offer advice or provide a prescription. The developers of the system believe that in many cases the need for a face to face appointment will be entirely removed.
Doctors’ surgeries across Scotland are planning to take part in the scheme. One will be Nairn Health- care Group in Ardersier, near Inverness, which is in talks with the Hurley Group, a London GP practice which pioneered the move.
An NHS Highland spokesman said: ‘Nairn Healthcare Group, along with NHS24 and the Hurley Group, are looking at ways in which we can use technology to support patients without them having to attend the practice. This is very much an early discussion at the moment and it is too early to talk about specifics.’
A pilot involving 20 London GP practices showed that of those patients using e-consulting, 79 per cent would otherwise have made an appointment and 14 per cent would have visited A&E. The most com- mon conditions involved were cystitis, depression, contraception, knee pain and earache.
Hurley Group chief executive Dr Arvind Madan said: ‘We were not keeping up with patient demand, and the technological revolution was not happening at the front line of general practice.
‘E-consulting can be done from home, work or on the bus. The idea is to start pilots in Scotland, and it is being considered Scotland-wide.’
The issue was also raised with doctors last week by Professor George Crooks, director of the Scottish Centre for Telehealth and Telecare. Speaking at the Next Steps for Primary Care in Scotland conference in Edinburgh, he compared the modern way of caring for people’s health to online banking, saying: ‘How we do our banking has changed.
‘The skill is empowering the citizens of Scotland to take more responsibility for their own health and wellbeing, but they need encour- agement to do so, so we need to give it to them. We can use technology to open up the service. We can allow them to click symptoms and self help, and that does not involve GPs having extra work.’
Professor Crooks insisted technology would not entirely replace traditional appointments, adding: ‘It’s not the panacea, but it can help. It’s how most of us wish to transact our business – from our own home.’
Scottish Labour health spokesman Jenny Marra said: ‘We must bring new technologies into our health service to improve care, but patients must always be able to get a guaranteed face to face appointment with their GP. That is the cornerstone of our health service and the SNP must continue to guarantee that.’
A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘We need our NHS to move with the times, and piloting technologies like this can only benefit patients and is absolutely the right thing to do.’
‘Important not to lose patient-doctor contact’