New requirements for GP surgeries to offer online appointment bookings throughout the day could worsen long-standing pressures unless capacity issues are urgently addressed.\r\n\r\nThat is the warning from the DAUK\u2019s GP committee.\r\n\r\nDr Steve Taylor, GP co-lead at the Doctors\u2019 Association UK (DAUK), said that while digital access can be helpful for patients, the rollout has been poorly planned and risks pushing overstretched surgeries to breaking point.\r\n\r\nSpeaking on Sky News, Dr Taylor said: \u201cEvery day, around 1.4 million people get appointments at GP practices compared with 67,000 attending A&E.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe issue isn\u2019t that people can\u2019t get through, it\u2019s that we don\u2019t have enough capacity.\r\n\r\n\u201cWe\u2019ve got unemployed GPs needing work and patients needing care, but not enough funded posts.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe new rules, ordered by the Government and which came into force today, mean surgeries must offer online booking alongside traditional telephone and in-person requests.\r\n\r\nSurgeries will have to provide the service from 8am to 6.30pm, Monday to Friday.\r\n\r\nAlongside requesting non-urgent appointments, patients will also be able to ask questions and describe symptoms and request a call back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Health Secretary Wes Streeting has said the move will end the \u20188am scramble\u2019 for appointments, and ease pressure on patients and surgeries.\r\n\r\nBut Dr Taylor warned the changes risk simply shifting the bottleneck.\r\n\r\n\u201cOn the face of it, online access sounds brilliant,\u201d he said. \u201cBut if a message comes through at 6.15pm, someone has to action it.\r\n\r\n\u201cIn a small practice like mine, that means staff staying late with no safeguards in place. It hasn\u2019t been thought through.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe added that expectations are being raised without an increase in resources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPatients may think booking online will be like booking a haircut, which is what Mr Streeting said this week.\r\n\r\n\u201cBut the reality is, there aren\u2019t more GPs, there aren\u2019t more appointments. We\u2019re already having to cancel some pre-booked face-to-face slots just to cope with this extra demand.\u201d\r\n\r\nDr Taylor also challenged Government claims about GP numbers and funding.\r\n\r\nWhile ministers point to 2,000 more GPs in the workforce, Dr Taylor said the real figure equates to around 1,000 full-time equivalents.\r\n\r\nAdditional NHS funding, he said, has been eroded by rising costs, leaving individual practices with too little to expand staffing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAs a GP, I look after 2,300 patients now compared with 1,800 just 10 years ago,\u201d he said.\r\n\r\n\u201cThere just aren’t enough GPs in employment, and funding hasn’t matched the increase in population.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe Health Secretary said that there’s a billion extra pounds that have gone into general practice.\r\n\r\n\u201cBut then you take away National Insurance contributions, increasing inflation and other things, that works out about \u00a3300 million.\r\n\r\n\u201cFor a small practice like mine, that’s about \u00a350,000, which might sound a lot, but actually doesn’t employ a GP.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr Taylor added: \u201cI do have some sympathy for the Health Secretary, there are tough choices across government.\r\n\r\n\u201cBut this top-down policy hasn\u2019t listened to doctors on the ground. Without fixing the root issues of capacity and safety, we\u2019re just moving the pressure around.\u201d\r\n\r\nWatch Dr Taylor\u2019s interview<\/a> on Sky News again.\r\n\r\nDAUK committee members are all volunteers and speak to the media about issues facing frontline doctors in their own time. Please support our work by joining DAUK<\/a> or donating to our GoFundMe<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" New requirements for GP surgeries to offer online appointment bookings throughout the day could worsen long-standing pressures unless capacity issues are urgently addressed. That is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1561,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[22,304,23],"class_list":["post-1436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dauk-news","tag-dr-steve-taylor","tag-gp-committee","tag-gp-crisis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1436\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}