Primary care has offered patients face-to-face appointments throughout pandemic
Commenting on the letter to primary care on face-to-face appointments and access to GPs, Dr Graham Jackson, a GP and senior clinical advisor at the NHS Confederation, said:
“The vast majority of primary care providers have offered face-to-face consultations throughout the pandemic, where clinically appropriate, and will continue to do so. Face-to-face consultations are absolutely an essential part of core services, and they should always be offered where the clinical need exists. A conversation between the patient and the healthcare professional will identify that need.
“It must be acknowledged that wider primary care teams often include nurses, advanced clinical practitioners, pharmacists and others, who can provide a range of support: a doctor may not always be the appropriate first point of contact.
“Every practice will have different issues, with different levels of capacity and demand, but this letter does not include details of any extra investment or resource for primary care services, and does not acknowledge how exhausted and overstretched the whole workforce is. Workload has already increased, and the national data demonstrates this. Primary care providers are working hard to manage current demand, support those on waiting lists, and clear the backlog. This is alongside an increase in patients seeking support for mental health reasons and also the rollout of the largest vaccination programme the UK has ever seen.
“Primary care providers have been given very little notice and while some will be ready, others will need more time, not least because there could well be a surge in patients calling their surgeries over the next few days.”
