Doctors vote to scrap home visits because modern GPs 'don't have time'

NHS doctors vote to SCRAP home visits because modern GPs ‘don’t have time to drive from house to house’

• GPs’ regional representatives met for a vote in London and chose 54% in favour
• They said modern doctors don’t have the time to drive around visiting people
• The practice is ‘virtually unheard of’ in other countries, one argued
• Experts called for the NHS to set up a separate home-visiting service  

Doctors in England have voted to stop doing home visits because they take up too much valuable time.

Under current rules, GPs are required to take call-outs when patients claim they are too ill to make it to hospital.

In a controversial move, regional health bosses voted 54 per cent in favour of scrapping the rule written in GP contracts.

The doctor who proposed the contract change said visiting patients at home ‘isn’t good medicine’ and is ‘virtually unheard of’ anywhere else in the world.

There are concerns refusing to visit people at home would leave rural, disabled or very ill patients who can’t get to a surgery at a disadvantage.

But doctors have chosen to call for changes to the GP contract which means they’re no longer obliged to visit people at home.

Doctors said they no longer have time to make visits to patients at home and the practice is outdated and ‘virtually unheard of’ anywhere else in the world (stock image)

‘Moving away from routine day-to-day contacts would actually improve care,’ said Dr Andrew Parkin from Kent’s Local Medicine Committee, Pulse reported.

‘All our patients will benefit, by gaining us that most precious and rare commodity in general practice, time.

‘Home visits take up the most time of anything we do.Two to three hours a day for the majority.’

GP waiting times and staffing shortages have been in crisis for years and the NHS is battling to improve people’s access to their family doctors.

Doctors are angry about unsustainable workloads and pension regulations which are leaving them out of pocket, and are retiring at a faster rate than they can be replaced.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock last month pledged to employ 6,000 more GPs and 50million more appointments each year during the next Parliament.

But he was accused of making empty promises after the Conservatives’ last effort – a commitment to hiring 5,000 extra doctors between 2015 and 2020 – failed and doctor numbers actually fell over that time.

Doctors made the decision to stop home visits at a London meeting of the country’s Local Medicine Committees, which represent GPs at regional levels.

They agreed a separate service should be negotiated for NHS England to provide at-home visits for people who really need them.

At the moment doctors are contractually obliged to do them if their patients require.

Kent’s Dr Parkin added: ‘You have the most highly trained, endangered, and in-demand people in primary care driving around 25 square miles to see two patients an hour, and in the case of rural colleagues, maybe only one,’ according to Pulse.

‘This isn’t good medicine. No other country has on-demand visits like the UK. New Zealand, Canada, Australia – home visits are virtually unheard of.’

Dr Richard Vautrey, GPs chair at the British Medical Association, said the modern GP doesn’t have the capacity to travel around to see patients.

He said stopping home visits would affect only a small minority of people and improve conditions for the majority.

‘Patients who can be treated only at home will still need to be seen – and NHS England will need to ensure this happens outside of the GP contract,’ he said.

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