‘Second class care’

An online GP service that is attracting younger patients in London and reducing funding for surgeries in the capital to treat those who are older and less healthy “threatens the very survival of the NHS general practice” and must be scrapped, Doctors in Unite have said.

Since the GP at Hand online consultation app, which cuts patients off from their local GP surgery, launched in November, 40,000 people in central London have applied to join the service – most of them believed to be aged between 20 and 39.

Babylon, the company behind the app, has said it is in talks to extend the service to other major cities in the UK.

In a letter to health and social care secretary Jeremy Hunt, Doctors in Unite said the app had caused GP surgery lists in London to “shrink for the first time in years”, leading them to lose the funding.

“Losing registration fees for younger, fitter patients who join GP at Hand threatens the model of general practice relied on by so many patients, since the NHS was formed 70 years ago,” said Doctors in Unite chair Dr David Wrigley.

“In practice, 70 per cent of all patients are reasonably well. Their funding helps surgeries care for the 30 per cent who are sick. It’s a system that works, because it’s fair. We will eventually end up in the 30 per cent – and that’s why we are calling on Jeremy Hunt to scrap this flawed and misguided model.”

Head of Unite Community Liane Groves said that if traditional local practices close because of the new model it will effect the elderly and vulnerable and those who can’t afford to travel to get face to face treatment by a GP.

She said, “Poaching predominantly young and healthy people out of traditional GP surgeries will leave those left receiving second class care. Everyday Unite Community activists see the harm this government’s attacks on public services do to the some of the most vulnerable people in our country. It is these people – the elderly, the chronically ill, young families mired in poverty – who have already suffered so much, that will bear the brunt of this model.”

A GP at Hand spokesperson said that the app provides “NHS services to all patients – just like the vast majority of GP practices throughout the UK”.