Face-to-Face Medical Appointments

Lord Bethell Excerpts

Thursday 19th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Balfe]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress they have made towards the return to face to face appointments on demand for medical patients.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Bethell) (Con)]

My Lords, face-to-face GP appointments increased from 10 million in August to 15 million in September. I should like to take this moment to thank those who have worked hard to restart primary care and serve patients in difficult circumstances. But I should also flag that the proportion of consultations by phone and video is currently running at around 40% and, for many people, this represents a safe, convenient, low-stress, low-cost and hygienic way to get the clinical engagement they need.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response and note that public trust in the Government is not rising at the moment, and that many people feel that the absence of effort to get medical practice back to normal is a contributory factor in this. Will the department make it a priority to get face-to-face appointments back to the level that they were before? If it cannot, the Government will find that trust declines even further.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his comments and reassure him that the Government are absolutely focused on the restart programme. The chief executive of the NHS has written to GPs, emphasising the absolute and primary importance of face-to-face appointments, for exactly the reasons that my noble friend knows full well. I also emphasise the enormous response that we have had from the public, and that we are meeting exacting targets for those face-to-face meetings. I also emphasise that new technologies and techniques have been very much welcomed by the public. Telemedicine, and telephone and video consultations, have proved to be extremely popular and helped to increase the number of appointments last month compared with this time last year.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, nearly three-quarters of GP consultations at the peak of the pandemic were conducted by telephone or video call. A BMA survey in June found that nine in 10 GPs want to continue to deliver consultations remotely, once the pandemic has ended. Many people are reluctant to discuss their symptoms in this way, or cannot access the necessary technology, and often diagnoses are not possible without a physical examination. Is the Minister happy with such a change? What guidance does the department intend to give on this, and will the GP contract be reviewed to reflect what is happening?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

The noble Lord is entirely right. Without doubt, there are very many circumstances in which a face-to-face appointment is absolutely necessary, whether that is for a physical analysis, for the comfort of the patient or to check out other symptoms that may not be apparent from a telephone call. However, there are other people for whom telephone appointments are helpful. The Royal College of Physicians found that 20% of patients over 65 felt worse after an in-person appointment because of the stress involved. But the noble Lord is entirely right that guidelines do need to be evolved in order to reflect the changes, and there may be a moment when the GP contract needs to be revisited.

[Lord Mann (Non-Afl)]

Iceland has better survival rates for strokes by using telemedicine for decisions in acute care on thrombolysis. Will the Government not take this opportunity to move primary care far more into the modern era by encouraging a far greater use of telemedicine, and not simply hark back to the past as we learn from the experiences of Covid?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

The noble Lord makes an incredibly interesting parallel with Iceland. It is not one that I knew, but I will take care to look into it, because it is instructive and informative. He is right to say that Covid has demonstrated the power of telemedicine, and we are keen to learn that lesson. We do not want the elastic band of old practice to snap back to where it was before. To reflect the words of a noble Lord who spoke previously, there will be occasions when tele- medicine is right. The key is getting the blend correct and ensuring that the right format is used in the right circumstances.

[Baroness Browning (Con) [V]]

I quite accept that there is a role for telemedicine, but an accurate diagnosis in cases of serious disease and illness is dependent not just on the questions that the doctor asks and the observations he makes but on the ability of the patient to give accurate information. I will give the example from my family in the past few months of antibiotics prescribed for a “lung infection” that was actually a fatal pulmonary embolism. Getting that mix right is not easy; there are very many shades of grey.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My noble friend makes a very good point. Diagnosis is phenomenally difficult and, quite often, patients who present with seemingly one condition have something altogether different. It may be that a face-to-face appointment will be the moment when that difference is spotted and caught. She is entirely right to say that we cannot omit that format for the right circumstances, but a great many patients see their GPs very regularly. Their journeys may be onerous, uncomfortable and stressful, and telemedicine might offer them an alternative opportunity. There are others for whom speed is of the essence, and having telemedicine, particularly when it is supported by apps that provide essential information about their condition, can be an important and urgent alternative.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD) [V]]

My Lords, according to the June edition of the British Medical Journal, the biggest change for mental health services has been the rapid adoption of video and phone consultations, an approach that had rarely been used in a field where relationships and trust between clinicians and patients are vital and where body language and eye contact are often a key part of the assessment. Many in the sector have reported that virtual appointments are at best inferior, particularly with young people, those with learning disabilities and the elderly. What assurances can the Minister give that face-to-face appointments will continue to be made available for those who need them in this field?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

The noble Baroness has raised an important point. I saw the BMJ article to which she has referred; it was a very interesting warning shot, whereby we should not overshoot in this area. But perhaps I can also emphasise that other interesting evidence shows that some mental health services have been better provided by online consultations. For instance, some young people do not like visiting clinics, where they feel uncomfortable, and prefer video conferences. I think it is too early to call it on this one, because we need to analyse closely the benefits and disbenefits in the area of mental health. We must ensure that we have the right format for the right occasion, but I completely take on board the warnings of the noble Baroness.

[Lord Flight (Con)]

My Lords, my personal experience of online doctor appointments is that they are most satisfactory, efficient and time-saving, but I do understand that many older citizens may want and often need to have traditional face-to-face appointments. Appointments on demand are surely not practical, but does the Minister support citizens having the legal right to request one-to-one doctor appointments?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I agree with my noble friend that the terms of service should be clear, although I am not sure that we necessarily have the scope for or benefits of a legal right per se. However, perhaps I may disagree with him on one point. He said that there is a greater demand among older citizens for face-to-face contact, but that is not our experience. Older citizens are often very engaged digitally, prefer to engage with their clinicians, on occasion, from the comfort of their own homes, and can often be early adopters of such technologies.

[Baroness Meacher (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I agree with the Minister that, much to doctors’ surprise, many older people prefer to have virtual appointments, whether by Zoom or telephone. We can make assumptions about people, but doctors have been quite surprised by the extent to which patients prefer having an online consultation. Does the Minister agree that, in the end, this needs to be a matter for doctors to decide? Very often, they will have an initial conversation and then agree to see the patient when that is necessary. However, this is probably not a matter for government to decide on or to intervene in, and certainly not until doctors have settled down to a pattern of consultations based on their experience and understanding of their patients.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

The noble Baroness makes a good point, but I would put a slightly different perspective on it. Doctors have not been the most progressive group in this area; as she says, they have been caught by surprise by patients’ views. I would actually give patients the loudest voice in this particular conversation.

[The Deputy Speaker (The Earl of Kinnoull) (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I regret that the time allotted for this Question has now elapsed.