Good news about GPs in England (?)

Some good news today, including that:

"From October, the reforms will require GP surgeries to allow patients to request appointments online in a bid to free-up phone lines for urgent enquires and help end the 8am rush to book appointments over the phone."

And, especially importantly for all of us as autistic patients:

"GPs will also be incentivised to identify patients who would benefit from seeing their regular doctor at every consultation."

More details here:

https://news.sky.com/story/gps-in-england-agree-deal-to-end-8am-scramble-for-appointments-13318444

Parents Reply Children
  • South Yorkshire.

    I can't speak for every surgery in every part of South Yorkshire but the ones around here all offered online booking through "EMIS Access" and "SystmOnline" back in the early 2010s, albeit you had to register for it separately. There have also been some local initiatives like the "Rotherham Health App", which was supposed to be a kind of universal third party alternative to the former, but that has since been discontinued in favour of the national NHS app. 

    n.b. I have no idea how well any of the above worked. I used to help a local elderly gent who seemed to get on fine with SystmOnline. Someone else I knew didn't have any luck with the "Rotherham Health App" after switching from EMIS Access - it didn't work and she kept getting passed back and forth between the surgery and the app company before giving up.

    Its possible that some of the smaller surgeries were quite late to adopt online services, but the larger ones were quite early adopters.