Since Covid-19, how our family doctors and their teams work has changed, and many GP practices now offer many more telephone appointments than before.
The Government now publishes data including for how many appointments any given practice offered in a month, whether they were face-to-face or not. It is important to note that in research conducted by the Health Foundation in 2020 and 2021 found only 10% of people were requesting a face-to-face appointment in September 2021.
Many GPs have questioned publishing the data, and while speaking to ChronicleLive over the past year, many others have explained that often patients have preferred the convenience of a remote appointment. The Government is driving to boost the number of face-to-face appointments though, even as data shows the number of permanent GPs in England has dropped year-on-year for each the last seven months.
