New health system gets a mixed reception

A NEW online way of consulting GP practices has had a mixed reception in a trial in Hull.

In 2016 Hull Clinical Commissioning Group was granted funding from the NHS England Estates and Technology Transformation Fund to test the eConsult system at 21 city GP practices.

This allows patients to submit symptoms any time of day or night, seven days a week. They are supposed to get a response – a telephone consultation, prescription or an appointment or advice – within two working days.

The eConsult system ran between April last year and this February and saw more 1,800 consultations submitted for conditions ranging from back pain and cough, through to depression and hayfever.

When asked whether they would use it in future, 55 per cent were “very” or “fairly” interested, while 43 per cent from control practices which were not using eConsult showed an interest.

The main barrier was a preference for face-to-face consultation and lack of internet access. A report to the city council’s Health Overview and Scrutiny Commission said future users were more likely to be women, younger age groups and people who were working.

An online poll earlier this year suggested more than half of practices in England had no interest in providing online consultations, despite NHS England ploughing £45m of funding into the initiative as part of the GP Forward View. NHS England has heavily backed online consultations as a way of helping GP practices to tackle growing workload and improve access for patients.

However some GPs think it will lead to an increased workload.