Why are doctors still hiding behind Zoom screens?

Where have all the GPs gone? Doctors were among the first to be double-jabbed, ahead of teachers in the queue precisely so they could resume seeing patients in the flesh. But while schools have long been back, GPs have retreated behind their laptops never to be seen again (at least not in the flesh). The stethoscope has been replaced by a headset — to the despair of patients with ailments that are hard to diagnose over the phone or via a laptop.

In theory, GPs can claim normal service has resumed. In the pandemic the number of appointments almost halved to just over three million a week — in spite of attempts to keep healthcare running. The consequences of this drop can only be guessed at. The problem with ministers urging us to ‘protect the NHS’ by not using it is that people don’t seek medical care, including cancer diagnoses. And that will kill, as surely as Covid.

GPs say consultations are now back to the normal level of six million a week. But look into the figures and you can see a big flaw: the number of face-to-face appointments is way down since the pandemic began, with 1.5 million fewer in-person appointments each week. They have been replaced by telephone appointments. Their number has tripled, from about 850,000 per week pre-pandemic to about 2.3 million a week now.

This is not driven by patient demand: it’s a downgrade of a vital public service. Under pandemic guidance, GP surgeries had been advised to offer telephone triage first, and then face-to-face appointments if deemed ‘clinically necessary’. What constitutes ‘necessary’ remains open to interpretation. While many GPs have been willing to offer patients either telephone or in–person appointments, depending on what they prefer, others appear to have moved almost entirely to virtual ones.