Health service draws flak over e-mail consultation

London: Patients are to be told to examine themselves at home and e-mail their GP with the results rather than meeting face to face.

They would send in a short message describing symptoms which would be answered by a doctor between appointments or at the end of the working day.

Those with long-term conditions such as heart failure, diabetes or lung disease could even be asked to measure their own blood pressure, glucose levels and temperature, sending results to the surgery.

Handheld devices

Ministers want to cut "unnecessary" appointments in the hope of saving up to £1 billion (Dh5.65 billion) a year while at the same time allowing GPs to devote their attention to the most seriously ill.

Thousands of patients in England have already been issued with handheld devices and asked to send in their own measurements to their surgeries. But leading doctors are worried about the "remote" diagnosis plans and fear life-threatening illnesses will be missed.

The British Medical Association (BMA) has warned that standards of care will be jeopardised and GPs will be forced to spend much of their day answering e-mails rather seeing patients.

In addition, the General Medical Council, the health watchdog, is opposed on the grounds that patient confidentiality could be jeopardised. It fears that anyone could send a message to a GP pretending to be a patient, to try to tease out highly sensitive, personal information.

In November Daily Mail revealed government plans to introduce a national call centre for all appointment bookings to try to save money. It has since emerged that surgeries are already using operators hundreds of miles away to make bookings under a pilot scheme.

Under the latest Department of Health proposals, patients would be encouraged to e-mail their GP with a short description of symptoms. The doctor would send a short reply with advice or, if concerned, urge the patient to visit the surgery.

Those issued with electronic devices would e-mail or text the results every few days to the surgery and, if a reading was abnormal, an appointment would be arranged.

Remote communication

However, it refers to a pilot study carried out in Dundee, where rather than visit the surgery patients sent messages referring to possibly serious conditions. A separate report by the think tank 2020Health estimates that the NHS could save £1 billion a year if patients are encouraged to manage their illness.

The BMA warned that would be only a matter of time before a serious illness is missed. Dr Laurence Buckman, chairman of its GP committee, said: "My worry is that the patient won't realise the severity of their disease and neither will the doctor as it won't have been conveyed in the message. People with a very serious chest infection might just think it's a cough."