Visiting my GP: boiled sweets and swimming pools.

Whenever I became ill as a child, my parents would try ‘over the counter’ remedies and draw upon their many years of family experience to try and make me well again. This was a time before Dr Google. If all else failed, then it was a trip to our local doctor. His practice was but a few streets away, situated in an ordinary semi-detached house. It was a single GP practice, and the doctor was a lovely man whose name I have long since forgotten.

What I haven’t forgotten however is how each visit was conducted. Back then there wasn’t an appointment system. If you needed to see the doctor, you turned up at the surgery, entered through the side door and sat and waited for your turn to see him. The chairs were dining room chairs, set around the walls of the room. There was a gas fire, lit in winter, and a small table with a range of magazines on it. It was always stifling hot.

In terms of medical memories, I once went there and was diagnosed as having a ‘burst appendix’ and was swiftly walked to the local hospital to have it removed. My other enduring memory was when I developed a huge abscess on my back. After days of unsuccessful home treatment, I was taken to the doctors, only to be sent straight to the aforementioned hospital to have it lanced, drained, and sewn up, followed by two weeks of ultra sun lamp treatment! However, each visit to the doctor meant you got a boiled sweet from one of those old-fashioned tall glass jars he kept on his desk.

Now the more astute of you will have made this blog’s connection to the news last week that as of the first of October, all GP practices must offer online appointments. The appointments must be available from 08.00-18.30. Many GP practices already offer such a system. Our GP practice has been offering this service for over 18 months now. I can contact our surgery through my NHS App, Patient Access and Patchs. That said, it has taken me a while to be able to navigate my way through the Patchs system. Unlike Jane.

Over the last month Jane has used Patchs to access her health care, and has done so very successfully. She has been offered appointments to see GPs, and an Advanced Practitioner, had call backs, blood tests and other investigations, and all arranged remotely. Jane’s biggest problem is actually physically getting to the surgery. Since her brain injury earlier in the year, she has not been allowed to drive. The folk at DVLA keep saying the computer says no. Very frustrating.

Our GP practice has two branch surgeries. Our regular one is a five-minute walk away and comes complete with a swimming pool, library, café, gym, kiddies’ play area and a therapy garden. It would blow my childhood GP’s mind. The branch surgery is a 20-minute drive away and requires two buses to get to it. It was at this practice that Jane was receiving her recent health care, and thankfully, I was able to ferry her to and from her appointments.

Understandably, a lack of transport is going to be a problem for some people; fortunately, it was just a minor issue for us. The problem would have still been a problem had we tried to access our GP using the more traditional 8am telephone call. I have to say I’m a big advocate for using new technology to make it easier to access the health care I need, when I need it. I’m not alone. Currently one in five GP appointments are made online, and that’s equates to about 72 million appointments a year.

Whilst I understand that not everyone will have access to a smart phone or computer or be digitally literate, my greater concern is the number of folk, who struggle with health literacy. Last week, NHS Providers, in partnership with NHS England, published a report on improving health literacy across the NHS. It makes for a sobering read.

The report contains a number of case studies. One of these focuses on my local hospital. It details the steps that they are taking to improve health literacy across a population with high levels of deprivation. Not all health care policy make sense. Mandating online appointments in primary care certainly does. However, it’s clear from the NHS Providers’ report that there is a need to also address some more basic and fundamental issues around how people could best access health care services. I’m sure it is unlikely any such approaches will involve boiled sweets.