# Top GP warns health secretary against 'deaf enthusiasm' for disruptive technology



## Northerner (Sep 26, 2018)

A top GP has issued a stark message to health and social care secretary Matt Hancock over his backing for technology such as GP at Hand - warning that policy driven by 'deaf enthusiasts or commercial interests' is unlikely to benefit the NHS.

RCGP vice chair of external affairs Professor Martin Marshall told a Westminster Health Forum event on Thursday that advocates of online consulting 'including our beloved new secretary of state for health' should be far more willing to 'listen to the critics'.

Professor Marshall said that in a few years' time GPs would 'look back with amusement' at a time when most consultations were 10-minute face-to-face appointments. But he warned that despite potential benefits, there was an urgent need to be 'much more explicit and much more honest about the potential downsides of online consulting'.

https://www.gponline.com/top-gp-war...husiasm-disruptive-technology/article/1493647

(free registration)

Couldn't agree more  Sounds great, but the pitfalls haven't been thought through.


----------



## mikeyB (Sep 26, 2018)

Aye, this is one of the more hare brained schemes to reduce pressure on GPs. It won’t, because an online GP can’t prescribe, nor examine the patient, nor does he/she know that the person in front of them is a notorious hypochondriac, or someone looking for a free second opinion.


----------



## Ljc (Sep 26, 2018)

It’s not a service I personally would use.


----------



## Amigo (Sep 26, 2018)

Ljc said:


> It’s not a service I personally would use.



They wouldn’t have us Lin. It’s not for more complex chronic problems just the younger walking wounded who need a quick remedy. 

That’s the whole problem with it. Setting up a two tier service and taking GP’s out of the system to provide it.


----------



## Hepato-pancreato (Sep 27, 2018)

Everything sounds great when they explain these ideas. Never say what happens when things go wrong like the internet going down. 
When there is a power cut now shop has to shut, tills won’t work omg can’t serve anyone. Who remembers the seventies power cuts, they could serve you by candlelight. Use a pencil and paper no problem.


----------



## mikeyB (Sep 27, 2018)

Aye, and it presumes a fast enough broadband. When I lived on Mull, I couldn’t do FaceTime calls with the family. There are many parts of the country where this just wouldn’t work.

As H L Mencken said, for every complex problem there is answer which is clear, simple and wrong.


----------



## Lilian (Sep 27, 2018)

My sister's surgery (in Cumbria), has started a scheme whereby you fill in a questionnaire with your symptoms, or what you want to talk about, if it needs more information it will ask for that, and when completed this is sent by email.   If the questionnaire detects an emergency it will tell you to go to A & E straight away, otherwise you wait for a reply.    Apparently that email then goes to the relevant department, or if you have specified a particular doctor it goes to them. I daresay you also say how you want the reply.    A short while later you get a call from the relevant person if that is what you requested.   If it is a doctor who considers you need a physical examination, or they want to see you, they will then make an appointment to see you that day.   But whatever your query or problem it is sorted out that day.   We cannot work out how she was able to see her doctor that day with this scheme, yet previously still had to wait 11 days before she could even get a telephone appointment.    I do not know how it will impact doctors but it is certainly less frustrating for patients.   Also, I am not sure what happens to those who do not have access to technology, although what with computers, laptops, tablets and phones it is a rare person who does not.    Even my technophobe, Luddite husband has now succumbed to a smart phone, which I gave him for Christmas last year.


----------



## mikeyB (Sep 27, 2018)

I assume there is an alternative system where you can just phone, Lilian. If there isn’t, there is no stopgap. That system has too many elements that can fail, the first of which is access to it. I disagree that folk without technology are rare. Many people live outwith a decent phone signal, never mind interactions with a surgery questionnaire.


----------



## TheClockworkDodo (Sep 27, 2018)

My Mum doesn't have a computer, and couldn't use one if she had.  She's 90 and has arthritis which means she can't walk to the surgery.  They often just don't bother to answer the phone if they're busy.  So if Mum needs to see a doctor in an emergency she has to rely on her neighbour being there and being willing to go over to the surgery and ask for a doctor to visit.  Most of the time when this happens they say something like "we'll ring her Tuesday".  My Mum accepts this.  She is one of the ones who will fall through the cracks when everything is computerised.

On the other hand online consultations would be great for me, am allergic to everything in the surgery and I can't use the phone!


----------



## mikeyB (Sep 28, 2018)

But as Amigo has said, with complex conditions this is a complete non- starter. And you are as complex as they come Juliet. No offence meant x


----------



## TheClockworkDodo (Sep 29, 2018)

None taken!  I just wish I could get things like diabetes consultations done online - they don't examine me, they just tell me not to have so many hypos.  They could do that by Skype.  They could do it by email!


----------



## mikeyB (Sep 30, 2018)

Skype would be better, then you can see the whites of their eyes.


----------



## Northerner (Sep 30, 2018)

Would you trust the government's judgement on any technology after this happened:

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...e-app-flaw-reveals-private-data-of-senior-mps 

It's not even the fault of the app's creators either and a schoolboy error overlooking the flaw, it appears they asked for it 



> The app, created by an Australian firm called CrowdComms, was updated and the login function removed after concerns were raised with the party.


----------



## grovesy (Sep 30, 2018)

Northerner said:


> Would you trust the government's judgement on any technology after this happened:
> 
> https://www.theguardian.com/politic...e-app-flaw-reveals-private-data-of-senior-mps
> 
> It's not even the fault of the app's creators either and a schoolboy error overlooking the flaw, it appears they asked for it


In a word no.


----------



## Ljc (Sep 30, 2018)

Northerner said:


> Would you trust the government's judgement on any technology after this happened:
> 
> https://www.theguardian.com/politic...e-app-flaw-reveals-private-data-of-senior-mps
> 
> It's not even the fault of the app's creators either and a schoolboy error overlooking the flaw, it appears they asked for it


I’d trust them as far as I can throw them


----------



## mikeyB (Oct 1, 2018)

Fighting talk, that Lin. I’ll be with you at the barricades


----------



## Hepato-pancreato (Oct 1, 2018)

What about the neo-luddites. This will get their backs up.


----------



## Lilian (Oct 1, 2018)

mikeyB said:


> I assume there is an alternative system where you can just phone, Lilian. If there isn’t, there is no stopgap. That system has too many elements that can fail, the first of which is access to it. I disagree that folk without technology are rare. Many people live outwith a decent phone signal, never mind interactions with a surgery questionnaire.


It seems to be working very well at the moment.    Yes, obviously anyone without the required technology goes through the telephone route, but I think that might have automated questions which will get you through to the relevant 'department', although I have only heard about the success of the computer route.


----------

