An interesting read. I know my experience differs to other people's through talking to friends and relatives who are in different surgeries and area's of the country.
Our surgery went digital years before Covid. I can order repeat prescription, read my history and book a telephone appointment for that day or the next day. Where you are triaged over the phone with a G.P. and dealt with appropriately. Never had the need for a Video consultation, so sorry don't know if they ever offered that service.
Both my husband and I are very happy with our Surgery, we have been looked after quickly, with the few things that have cropped up over the last 2 years. As well as before Covid. Thank you Grey Stoke Surgery Morpeth Northumberland.
Helping patients through the journey is really important. While many now use digital for life things like food shopping, banking etc we also need to remember we can't have all our patients doing that.
But glad to hear your practice like many have supported your needs.
Working in a CCG supporting GPs with digital at the start of COVID, we know at the out-set from other areas pilots that video consultation uptake was likely to be low at around 1-5% of consultations. Yet we were pushed and pushed by NHS-E to put in video consultation everywhere really fast. At the time, we thought it was just down to video consultation being one of Matt Hancock's hobby horses. Since then, a lot has emerged about procurement during COVID.
We may also have forgotten to take patients with us on this digital journey. Reading Betsy's post below her surgery looks to have done that, but many haven't. I think one driver for this is the confusion created by competing programmes led by either NHS-E or NHS-X or NHS-D in this space, leading to patient engagement material scattered to the four winds across different NHS websites and confused GPs not knowing what to promote; NHS App? GP Online tools like EMIS Patient Access? Evergreen? Although 22M people have now downloaded the NHS App to access COVID passes, how many use it to order repeat prescriptions [which would save GPs time and effort, as well as patients]. To help patients and demonstrate how things might be better I created my own website to pull patient engagement material together in one place https://www.digitalhealthcoachuk.net/nhs-app-easy-patient-access-to-gp-services Now that NHSE/D/X are merging, this problem should go away in a few years.
How funny - two Betsy’s in a morning! I’m lucky that at 74 I’ve had relatively little cause ever to visit a doctor’s surgery so I may not be typical. I always hated it - sitting around for ages in a germ-laden waiting-room, listening to ghastly music (or at one stage even having to endure one of the doctor’s holiday videos on an endless loop at every visit), finally getting to see the doctor, often for a simple prescription. This doctor’s conclusion that telephone trumps video chimes with my views. Haven’t had cause yet (fingers crossed) to visit more than once during the pandemic but would always prefer a good old-fashioned telephone conversation. Thanks, Rory. Another excellent read. Now I’ll watch the video.
One group poorly served by primary care is the 18 - 36 age group. Studies have shown they would rather wait four hours in casualty with the guarantee of being seen than wait two weeks for an appointment at a GP. The problem is Dr Gandhi's solutions do not work for this group. They do not telephone each other. They do not video call each other. They text. I have advocated LiveChat as a way of offering online consultations for years. It is Apple, Amazon and Google's first line choice for handling questions. It has so many advantages in medicine as well. It is not linear, people can think for a while about what has been said and come back to ask more questions. It can be carried out in any language and automatically translated. It can handle speech to text for people who have difficulty seeing or reading. And so many more. I have a paper showing how it could be implemented in hospital A&E departments as well as general practice, please contact me if you would like more details.
I agree working as a nurse practitioner many minor illnesses can be dealt with over the phone. I have availability at the end of the morning to do face to face appointments. This is mainly for chests ears and children. I also feel patients not responding to first line treatment probably should be offered a face to face. Triage also means investigations can be organised before the patient is seen making diagnosis quicker. I do wonder if antibiotic use has increased working this way? We use the accuix text messaging service which is great for photo and attaching information sheets or charts for monitoring.
I hope that the variety of options for consultations becomes standard across primary care.
We have a brilliant GP practice at Kirkby Lonsdale but I know they are overworked. We have had phone triage for a long time and it works well. I know video calls would be great but their broadband can't support it. They could have gigabit broadband from a local company, but the NHS won't let them. One of the doctors tried to get Skype going 10 years ago but the NHS wouldn't let him. It is about time someone in the NHS modernised their comms.
An interesting read. I know my experience differs to other people's through talking to friends and relatives who are in different surgeries and area's of the country.
Our surgery went digital years before Covid. I can order repeat prescription, read my history and book a telephone appointment for that day or the next day. Where you are triaged over the phone with a G.P. and dealt with appropriately. Never had the need for a Video consultation, so sorry don't know if they ever offered that service.
Both my husband and I are very happy with our Surgery, we have been looked after quickly, with the few things that have cropped up over the last 2 years. As well as before Covid. Thank you Grey Stoke Surgery Morpeth Northumberland.
Helping patients through the journey is really important. While many now use digital for life things like food shopping, banking etc we also need to remember we can't have all our patients doing that.
But glad to hear your practice like many have supported your needs.
Working in a CCG supporting GPs with digital at the start of COVID, we know at the out-set from other areas pilots that video consultation uptake was likely to be low at around 1-5% of consultations. Yet we were pushed and pushed by NHS-E to put in video consultation everywhere really fast. At the time, we thought it was just down to video consultation being one of Matt Hancock's hobby horses. Since then, a lot has emerged about procurement during COVID.
We may also have forgotten to take patients with us on this digital journey. Reading Betsy's post below her surgery looks to have done that, but many haven't. I think one driver for this is the confusion created by competing programmes led by either NHS-E or NHS-X or NHS-D in this space, leading to patient engagement material scattered to the four winds across different NHS websites and confused GPs not knowing what to promote; NHS App? GP Online tools like EMIS Patient Access? Evergreen? Although 22M people have now downloaded the NHS App to access COVID passes, how many use it to order repeat prescriptions [which would save GPs time and effort, as well as patients]. To help patients and demonstrate how things might be better I created my own website to pull patient engagement material together in one place https://www.digitalhealthcoachuk.net/nhs-app-easy-patient-access-to-gp-services Now that NHSE/D/X are merging, this problem should go away in a few years.
How funny - two Betsy’s in a morning! I’m lucky that at 74 I’ve had relatively little cause ever to visit a doctor’s surgery so I may not be typical. I always hated it - sitting around for ages in a germ-laden waiting-room, listening to ghastly music (or at one stage even having to endure one of the doctor’s holiday videos on an endless loop at every visit), finally getting to see the doctor, often for a simple prescription. This doctor’s conclusion that telephone trumps video chimes with my views. Haven’t had cause yet (fingers crossed) to visit more than once during the pandemic but would always prefer a good old-fashioned telephone conversation. Thanks, Rory. Another excellent read. Now I’ll watch the video.
One group poorly served by primary care is the 18 - 36 age group. Studies have shown they would rather wait four hours in casualty with the guarantee of being seen than wait two weeks for an appointment at a GP. The problem is Dr Gandhi's solutions do not work for this group. They do not telephone each other. They do not video call each other. They text. I have advocated LiveChat as a way of offering online consultations for years. It is Apple, Amazon and Google's first line choice for handling questions. It has so many advantages in medicine as well. It is not linear, people can think for a while about what has been said and come back to ask more questions. It can be carried out in any language and automatically translated. It can handle speech to text for people who have difficulty seeing or reading. And so many more. I have a paper showing how it could be implemented in hospital A&E departments as well as general practice, please contact me if you would like more details.
I agree working as a nurse practitioner many minor illnesses can be dealt with over the phone. I have availability at the end of the morning to do face to face appointments. This is mainly for chests ears and children. I also feel patients not responding to first line treatment probably should be offered a face to face. Triage also means investigations can be organised before the patient is seen making diagnosis quicker. I do wonder if antibiotic use has increased working this way? We use the accuix text messaging service which is great for photo and attaching information sheets or charts for monitoring.
I hope that the variety of options for consultations becomes standard across primary care.
We have a brilliant GP practice at Kirkby Lonsdale but I know they are overworked. We have had phone triage for a long time and it works well. I know video calls would be great but their broadband can't support it. They could have gigabit broadband from a local company, but the NHS won't let them. One of the doctors tried to get Skype going 10 years ago but the NHS wouldn't let him. It is about time someone in the NHS modernised their comms.