NHS: Pre-pandemic Facility Levels

Lord Laming Excerpts

Tuesday 29th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for those questions and will try to answer as many of them as I can. We are aware that this idea of returning to normal is patchy in different parts of the country. Some people have told me that visiting their GP or a hospital is fine, while others have had real trouble. Therefore, when these issues come up, I hope that noble Lords and others make us aware, so that we can ask the NHS what is happening. It is clearly an issue of capacity, but also, some people are trying to get face-to-face appointments with their GPs, while some practices are trying to move towards a technology-based service offering. I am aware of that. GP appointments are up to 60% of what they were pre-pandemic, but we understand that there is progress to be made in other areas.

[Lord Laming (CB)]

My Lords, I wonder whether the Minister realises that he could make himself hugely popular in the country if he could persuade GP practice reception facilities to be more user-friendly and welcoming to the clients.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The noble Lord makes an important point, and I can see a lot of agreement, judging by noble Lords’ body language. However, we must always be careful about this issue because patients have had different experiences. I have been speaking to noble Lords about this. Some have told me that it is really good and has gone back to normal; others are having real trouble getting access to a GP or even getting someone to answer a phone in the first place. We must be careful, because if I say, “GPs should be doing more,” I will be criticised for being tough on GPs, but if I say that we must understand that GP practices are under a lot of pressure, I will then be criticised for not pushing hard enough to solve the problem. The pandemic accelerated pre-existing trends. We were already moving more towards the use of technology. Some people were quite happy to contact their GP by phone or online, and we will see some of that. We will never go back to 100% face-to-face, but certainly, patients should be able to have face-to-face appointments unless there are good clinical reasons why they cannot.