• PATIENTS and communities in Camden deserve a bigger say in proposed changes to our local GP services.

In a brief consultation over the summer, NHS England have proposed to introduce symptom checkers, emails and video consultation as “digital first” ways of seeing a GP, as part of expanding online services.

Yet the evaluation of the existing online provider in London, GP at Hand (Babylon Healthcare Services Ltd), shows it is mainly used by younger, better off patients.

And only one-third of Camden GPs’ patients have taken even the first step of registering to make online appointments on systems available from their GP surgeries.

These changes to GP contracts reflect the fears – expressed by patients at Parliament Hill Medical Centre in March this year at an open meeting – that the NHS will increasingly be divided between an inclusion group of younger, affluent, digitally confident, help-seeking patients, and an exclusion group with more complex needs and less favourable social circumstances.

Our under-pressure health service undoubtedly needs to make better use of digital technology. But the rosy view in the NHS Long-Term Plan for an NHS App and easy access is now threatened by multiple log-ins, rickety implementation, and contracts for private providers. Surely our NHS bosses can do better than this.

Meanwhile, the Digital First consultation (closed last Friday) remains silent on how patients can be partners in these changes to GP services.

Health and Wellbeing Boards (which bring together the NHS and local partners) are nowhere mentioned in the consultation, and the new NHS National Assembly’s records contain no mention of digital first, while referencing the importance of kindness and human relationships.

As patients at Parliament Hill Medical Centre, we will be asking our patient group to consider these issues at their meeting next month.

MARTIN BOULD
NANCY WOLSTENHOLME
NW5