Patients and GPs gather for protest against GP at Hand
Chants of ‘GP at Hand should be banned’ could be heard in the streets of east London today as a group of patients, GPs and NHS staff protested against the service.
Protesters accused the online service of draining resources from NHS practices and held up banners reading ‘GP at Hand should be banned’ and ‘GP at Hand not on my land’ while there were also similar chants against privatisation of the NHS.
The NHS commissioned online service, which is powered by Babylon, promises to cut GP waiting times by allowing patients to book appointments and talk to their doctor through their smartphone within minutes.
It also claims patients can get a same or next day face-to-face appointment if needed at five clinics around London.
A group of around 20 gathered opposite Newby Place Health Centre, near Poplar, east London, which is one of these clinics, on Thursday to voice their concerns.
Tower Hamlets Local Medical Committee (LMC) chair and Bow GP, Dr Jackie Applebee, explained how GP at Hand’s business model is already causing problems for GPs across London.
“Surgeries like my own are now getting lots of calls from angry former patients, who didn’t realise that by using GP at Hand they were deregistering from their usual surgery,” she said.
“Some are insisting on re-registering, causing a lot of extra work for our staff.”
Dr Applebee also accused the service of cherry-picking younger, healthier patients, and it is taking resources from local NHS general practices that offer long-term care to all.
She said: “Sick patients inevitably use more of the available funding and resources, but the system is fair because we all eventually end up in the group that’s sick.
“But now that thousands of young Londoners are signing up with GP at Hand, they are taking NHS money away from GP surgeries who need it to take care of the old and sick. This is bad news for everyone – except GP at Hand.”
Another protester told Digital Health News that the demonstration was not against technology being used by GPs but it is vital that it is safe for patients and there was a number of references to the CQC’s report which revealed 43% of online consultation providers are not deemed to be safe.
Digital Health News also recently reported how the number of patients registered with the service has leaped from 2,500 in April 2017 to 24,651 as of 5 March 2018.
This averages out to around 4,000 registrations a month.
A GP at Hand spokesman said: “People have the right to choose their NHS practice.
“Londoners clearly like GP at hand, which as a free-at-point-of-need NHS service, extends 24/7 primary healthcare access to more members of the public.”
Babylon had originally planned to roll-out GP at Hand to more clinics in London as well as introducing it in Birmingham and Manchester.
However this was scaled back after NHS England lodged a “formal objection”.
6 Comments
I am 88, with multiple, but not very accute, morbidities. Would I join GP-at-hand?
– Yes, if they give me instant appointment. What patient in today’s NHS would n’t dream of that?
– But could they offer me the a choice of doctor to talk to? Trust and continuity are paramount to an old codger like me.
– Would they follow me through to the end?
– Can they offer me a proper physical investigation if i need it somewhere not far (5km) of where I live in SW London?
– Would they give me instant electronic connection and sharing records with all my local hospitals?
If yes, then I would be happy to join, although regretting the excellent service I receive from my current GP?
But surely, it is within the wit of any GP to incorporate an instant online appointment service within his/her own practice, so that I, the patient, gets the best of both worlds.
To get involved in silly protests in Hackney is absurd, and letting me, the patient, down.
You won’t be able to beat them, so join them.
And there is another thing I would demand from GP at Hand: would they act as my navigator through the confusing “pathways” of the NHS.? Navigation is something that fewer and fewer GPs seem to offer, – or indeed few of contemporaries seem to demand -,but to me it about the most important thing a GP has to do. I am lucky that my current GP practice has always given me reliable navigation in the 40 years I have been with them.
And another thing I would demand that they give me more than ten minutes per appointment. For an elderly patient with several conditions, the “ten minute rule” means poor doctoring and poor outcomes.
Nonsense – it’s disrupting primary care and the monopoly and GPS don’t like that. If I’m a patient and I want to use them and eligible why shouldn’t I be able too? This is why technology doesn’t work in the NHS, too many people with self interest and not the patient at centre.
Smashing weaving machines didn’t harm anyone’s health. Fundamentally undermining and destabilising the funding of Primary Care whilst providing services to the few has that potential. All for change where it is fairly funded, clinically effective, equitable and available for all….
Not all objectors to GP at hand are Luddites. Most recognise that there is a place for a online virtual GP service, certainly I do. However,I have some serious concerns.
Firstly, that it provides a service as an NHS GP practice under a contract that assumes that practices take all patients from their local community. GP at Hand “cherry picks” the young, able and healthy and are paid disproportionately for the low level of demand for this group. In the areas where patients have transferred to GP at Hand (many not realising that they have actually de-registered from their local GP practice) the viability of these practices, which are already at breaking-point, is critically undermined.
If we want to provide an NHS online GP service, then we need a new contract that pays only for the work they genuinely take for existing practices.
Secondly, the T&Cs that GP Hand operate under in terms of the use of patient data go much further than many will be comfortable with, particularly in the light of Facebook’s recent problems and I doubt if the consent obtained is sufficiently informed to meet the requirement of the upcoming GDPR. If people want to share their data in the way GP at Hand ask, then that’s fine, but it must be an informed choice.
Finally, on safety of course a service must be safe, but I don’t think it is fair to lump GP at Hand with the services highlighted by the CQC, many of these are online pharmacies trying to subvert the rules on Prescription Only Medicines with a farcically minimalist online consultation – GP at Hand do better than this.
The 21st century ludd-IT-es
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