The first “virtual GP service” using a smartphone is set to revolutionise the operations of General Practice clinics and replace visits to the doctor for many Londoners.
The smartphone will now be used by doctors who have promised video consultations within two hours of calling the service, to be known as “GP at Hand.”
Patients who use the initial pilot scheme – involving 3,000 Londoners – will have to switch from their current GP and commit to the new service. It is simply like moving surgeries, according to supporters of the new scheme.
It involves a deal – sanctioned by NHS bosses – between an ordinary GP surgery in Fulham, west London and Babylon, a technology firm that now offers a smartphone consultation service to private patients.
The project has raised fears among senior GPs that it will create a two-tier NHS, disrupting personal relationships and siphoning off fit, young patients, leaving traditional GP practices to deal with the frail, elderly and mentally ill. But NHS bosses have signed off on the scheme, saying that “one size does not fit all” for GP care.
Saving Time
Mobasher Butt, a partner in the “GP at Hand” service, said it would save time for patients trying to get an appointment with their own doctor.
“We do everything from grocery shopping to our banking online yet when it comes to our health, it can still take weeks to see a doctor and often means taking time off work,” Butt said.
“With the NHS making use of this technology, we can put patients in front of a GP within minutes on their phone.”
Matt Noble, another of the GP partners, said that the promise of seeing an NHS doctor within two hours would not lead to the service being overwhelmed by minor ailments.
“People do value the fact that they can see a GP when they want to, but it doesn’t lead to a massive increase in demand. What it does do is ensure people are seen much quicker,” he said.
Helen Stokes-Lampard, chairwoman of the Royal College of GPs, said that despite benefits for commuters it could make family doctor shortages worse by “luring GPs away” from surgeries.
“We are really worried that schemes like this are creating a twin-track approach to NHS general practice and that patients are being ‘cherry-picked’, which could actually increase the pressures on traditional GPs,” Stokes-Lampard said.
Beginning of the End
The service accepts that it is not necessarily suitable for people with dementia, mental health conditions or pregnancies but Stokes-Lampard said that such patients were “the essence of general practice”.
NHS England said: “GP practices are right to carefully test technologies that can improve free NHS services for patients while also freeing staff time.”
Like any other NHS GP practice, GP at Hand is paid a flat rate for every patient who is registered with it but it uses the money to sub-contract to Babylon, saying that it will not cost the health service “a penny more” than traditional surgeries.
The new “virtual GP service” is “the beginning of the end for the old-fashioned way we use healthcare,” according to Ali Parsa, the founder of Babylon. “It’s like going from a Nokia to an iPhone,” he said. “Maybe next year 10% of people will have one and in five years it will be everybody.”
He argued that using a symptom-checking artificial intelligence chatbot and more efficient systems could free GPs from paperwork, allowing them to see patients more quickly. “I think normal NHS GPs will see this works and convert to doing things this way,” he said.
by Bob Graham
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