General Practitioners
(asked on 21st July 2021) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has issued guidance to GP practices encouraging a return to face to face working from 19 July 2021.
Face-to-face appointments have been available throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and approximately half of all appointments in June 2021 were delivered in person. NHS England and NHS Improvement wrote to general practitioner practices on 19 July to set out that practices should offer a blend of face-to-face and remote appointments, with remote triage where possible. The letter is available at the following link:
Patients’ input into the choice of consultation mode should be sought and practices should respect preferences for face-to-face care unless there are good clinical reasons to the contrary, for example the presence of COVID-19 symptoms.