I have to ask if Matt Hancock understands what doctors do. His comment that all GP appointments should be done remotely by default unless a patient needs to be seen in person suggests he does not (All GP consultations should be remote by default, says Matt Hancock, 30 July).
Until a doctor has seen a patient, how does she or he know whether the patient needs to be seen in person? In 2017 I attended my regular medicine review. I need medication for diabetes and osteoporosis. The doctor asked after my general health. I was suffering from acid reflux, but not significantly. She decided that further tests were needed.
Following two endoscopy examinations, and CT and MRI scans, it was revealed that I had bowel cancer that had metastasised to the liver. The annual screening test through the post had not revealed this cancer. The cancer was removed before the growth had spread.
I owe my life to the visit to the doctor – and her knowledge and skill. I am not sure an online call would have achieved the same result.
Name and address supplied
• One of the main things we’ve learned during lockdown is how important it is for us to have direct physical contact with other people – loved ones and beyond. Many creative ways have been found to compensate for this loss and the damaging effects of isolation, and new ways of communicating, mostly online, are enhancing, rather than replacing, older methods.
And so, in matters of health, proposals for online contact with GPs’ surgeries should be seen as enhancing current relationships with our highly valued surgeries, but in no way as replacing them. The therapeutic reasons for this have been clearly expressed by the Royal College of General Practitioners.
But with our current government and its furious drive to agree trade deals, there may be another reason: general practice might be a much more attractive element of our NHS to put on the table if meeting sick patients, let alone visiting them, were a rarity rather than the norm, and doctoring in the community was predominantly by Zoom.
Michael Pountney and Liz Fraser
London
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