\n<\/p>\n
GPs in England are missing a trick (GPs in England threaten action over online appointment booking plan, 29 September). The point about non-urgent GP appointments is that they do not need triage \u2013 if a patient wants to see a primary care clinician for a routine concern, they can do so, whatever the issue.<\/p>\n
The number of routine slots available remains the same, and allowing people to book them online will reduce, not increase, workload by freeing up reception staff for other admin tasks, and making it easier to get through on the phone for urgent appointments. It\u2019s urgent requests, not routine\u00a0ones, that need triage.<\/p>\n
The big problem in primary care is the mismatch between demand and capacity, not how appointments are booked. Health policy interventions by the\u00a0government that make sense are an extremely rare thing. This\u00a0is\u00a0one of them. I have no fears of online GP appointment booking via triage as my practice adopted it a while ago. The practice graduated from a telephone \u201ccare navigator\u201d system, which worked well, to the current online method. Via both routes, my experience has been exceptional, with responses sometimes within 90 minutes, and directions to attend the same day to see a GP or advanced practitioner, to receive a prescription at my local pharmacy, or to get advice via text or telephone. Initial access by phone\u00a0still exists for those unable to use the new\u00a0method.<\/p>\n The online system creates better-targeted appointments, which surely means that an appropriate number of doctors can be reallocated to service the triage system. The use of emotive language by the British Medical Association such as \u201ctsunami\u201d and \u201cbarrage\u201d in anticipating the effect of online booking is not helpful or accurate. Robust patient education and support will help more. Have an opinion on anything you\u2019ve read in the Guardian today? Please <\/em><\/strong>email<\/em><\/strong> us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our <\/em><\/strong>letters<\/em><\/strong> section.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" GPs in England are missing a trick (GPs in England threaten action over online appointment booking plan, 29 September). The point about non-urgent GP appointments is that they do not need triage \u2013 if a patient wants to see a primary care clinician for a routine concern, they can do so, whatever the issue. The<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25443,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[15375,15010,8583,1186,2263],"class_list":{"0":"post-25442","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-advantages","9":"tag-booking","10":"tag-gps","11":"tag-online","12":"tag-systems"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25442\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Martin Giebner<\/strong>
Advanced nurse practitioner, Duns,\u00a0Scottish Borders<\/em><\/p>\n
Jonathan Hauxwell<\/strong>
Cross Hills, North Yorkshire<\/em><\/p>\n