General Practitioners: York

(asked on 18th May 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment his Department has made of the potential effect of emergency covid-19 triage arrangements on access to GP appointments across the City of York area.


Answered by
Jo Churchill Portrait
Jo Churchill
Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This question was answered on 27th May 2021

General practice is open and has been throughout the pandemic. In March 2021 over half of all appointments were face to face. On 20 May 2021, NHS England and NHS Improvement published updated standard operating procedures for general practice in the context of COVID-19. A blended approach of both face to face and remote appointments should be available to patients according to clinically appropriateness. Patient preferences for face to face and remote care need to be respected unless there are good clinical reasons to the contrary. Practice receptions should be clearly open, so patients without access to phones or online services are not disadvantaged. Practices are to review communications to ensure patients understand how to access general practitioner services.

NHS England and NHS Improvement have an independent evaluation underway to understand the impact for staff, patients and the wider health and care system of using digital tools in primary care and in particular the effectiveness of online consultation systems and triage approaches in general practice. NHS Vale of York Clinical Commissioning Group will also work with the Local Medical Committee to improve understanding of local general practice access issues.

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