The robots are on the way

We shouldn’t be too perturbed by the boom in medical consultation apps, says the admitted ol’ timer Dr Neil Haughton.

I freely admit I am most happy being an old-school face-to-face GP. I like seeing patients in my consulting room following the old medical school routine of taking a history, examining and maybe doing a blood test or referring to one of my specialist colleagues.

Of course, I speak over the phone and answer emails, so I do some ‘virtual’ consulting as well.

In the past few years, however, numerous online services have been available privately and now a similar service is available to NHS patients. In fact, NHS England is investing £45m into developing virtual GP consultations.

It is inevitable, of course, as demand increases and the difficulty of seeing an actual GP gets ever more challenging.