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    The Lowdown. What's happening to OUR NHS Archived Message

    Posted by Mary on December 9, 2020, 12:23 pm

    'Remote consultations in surgeries: a sign of things to come

    Despite the rapid and seemingly makeshift take-up of remote consultation by GPs and patients during the covid-19 pandemic, preparations for this 'off site’ revolution have been quietly underway for some time in the UK.

    In September 2019, six months before the first pandemic-inspired lockdown hit, NHS England (NHSE) laid out its aspirations for online consultations in primary care in a ‘digital first’ guidance document.

    Building on a survey earlier that year (by NHSE and NHS Improvement) that showed 67 per cent of a patient sample would be comfortable having this type of interaction with a GP, and looking to fulfil a commitment in its Long Term Plan, NHSE decreed that all practices were to offer online consultations by April this year and video consultations by early next year.

    The health service was therefore already primed to roll out remote interactions between patients and their GPs or consultants ‘at scale’ – whether by phone, online or via video – when the lockdown began in March. And the take-up has been remarkable, despite concerns over a corresponding decline in face-to-face consultations.'
    /..

    . Government refuses to say who benefited from ‘high-priority’ channel for contract awards

    . Vanishing front line beds pose threat to NHS future

    . Covid contract report reveals waste, cronyism and absent process

    . Private hospitals celebrate closer ties with NHS

    https://lowdownnhs.info/

    There is also a pdf link on there.

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