general practice

Hello everyone! My name is Bhavnisha and I am a medical student at UCL looking to have a chat with people with Type 2 diabetes about your experiences of remote consultations! I would be extremely grateful if you could help me out with this to ensure the best experience for you guys! The...

Three quarters of GPs believe routine appointments should be suspended in the event of a widespread coronavirus outbreak - including one in five who say this should happen now, a GPonline poll reveals. GPs have also backed a string of measures to ease pressure on general practice as...

Figures for December 2019 - the latest data available from NHS Digital - show that there were 28,319 fully-qualified FTE GPs in England - almost unchanged from the 28,315 in September 2019. But the loss of 277 fully-qualified FTE GPs over the full year to December 2019 means that in the four...

The health secretary, Matt Hancock, has ruled out scrapping home visits for GPs after doctors backed the idea in a vote, arguing that they were too over-stretched to deliver the service. Delegates representing GPs across England at a British Medical Association conference voted to try to remove...

GPs are wrongly denying care to homeless people, travellers and recent arrivals into the UK by telling them to produce photographic identification or proof of address before they can register or get urgent treatment. Sex workers and drug users are also being prevented from accessing GP...

England's NHS has lost 576 full-time equivalent, fully-qualified GPs over the past 12 months - a drop that suggests the decline in GP numbers has accelerated. In June 2019 there were 28,257 full-time equivalent (FTE) fully-qualified GPs working in England, figures from NHS Digital reveal - 2%...

The health secretary has announced a proposed overhaul of NHS health screening that could scrap GP consultations for millions of people, replacing them with online programmes and AI. The idea is that the one-size-fits-all system for routine health MOTs offered to those over 40 has become old...

Digital healthcare app Livi has partnered with over 150 new GP surgeries in a major expansion across England. The surgeries are spread across Birmingham, Shropshire, Northamptonshire, the south-east, and Surrey. Previously, the app was being used by practices in north-west Surrey and was...

The average wait for a routine GP appointment in the UK has risen above two weeks for the first time, according to an annual survey of doctors. The poll, for Pulse, found the average waiting time was almost 15 days. More than one in five of the 901 GPs who responded said the wait for a routine...

Health and social care secretary Matt Hancock could set a new deadline by the end of the year for adding 5,000 full-time equivalent (FTE) GPs to the NHS workforce. The health and social care secretary told MPs on the House of Commons health select committee that he could set a new deadline as...

An independent report on the impact of GP at Hand on patients, the wider health service and the workforce - carried out by Ipsos Mori on behalf of the CCG hosting the service - was unable to conclude whether the service was affordable and sustainable in its current form. It warned that the...

GP consultations need to be extended from 10 to 15 minutes to give patients more time to discuss their health, family doctors are arguing. The 10-minute appointment that is usual across the NHS is no longer adequate given the growing number of people who have several long-term illnesses...

THOUSANDS of patients are being forced to wait longer than a month to see their GP in Oxfordshire as practices struggle to recruit enough doctors to cope with demand. With GP numbers in ‘freefall’, coupled with a growing and ageing population, experts have warned of a ‘perfect storm’ as...

A HEALTH expert has described a shortage of GPs as an “accident waiting to happen”. David Liley, chief executive of Healthwatch Brighton and Hove, said the city’s lack of doctors is a problem that needs to be addressed quickly. A report by the organisation, which scrutinises NHS services...

An NHS scheme that has enabled GP practices to free up more time for doctors to see their patients is to be extended following a successful pilot. NHS England said the Time For Care scheme, tried out at certain sites since 2016, should be in place in three-quarters of GP practices by 2022. The...

More than one in four NHS patients who registered with Babylon GP at Hand quit the video consultation service within just over a year, figures obtained by GPonline reveal. Between November 2017 and January 2019 a total of 55,556 joined the digital first provider, according to figures obtained...

Some London CCGs are contesting being charged a fee for patients in their areas that have signed up to Babylon GP at Hand. CCGs were told to ‘set aside’ money to cover the costs of patients who reside within the CCG but are registered with the digital-first service, which is based in NHS...

Matt Hancock's message about the GP workforce at last week's RCGP conference sounded unequivocal - plans to recruit 5,000 extra GPs were proving difficult, but 'we are going to make it happen'. His exact words to the conference were: 'In 2015 the target was set to recruit 5,000 more GPs - and...

Health secretary Matt Hancock has pledged the government will meet its target of recruiting an extra 5,000 GPs by 2020/21, despite admitting the goal was proving 'difficult, to say the least'. In a video message to GPs at the RCGP annual conference 2018 in Glasgow, Mr Hancock said that to...

Technology firms such as Babylon are creating a digital divide in the NHS by 'siphoning off' young patients through services including the controversial GP at Hand, RCGP chair Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard told the college's annual conference on Thursday. In her keynote speech at the RCGP...