"Push Doctor"

That’s useful info! Never heard of it but will take a look now. I’m very lucky, our surgery is brilliant but I have friends elsewhere that are having terrible problems getting to see a GP. Thanks for the post Sparklefizz x

No. It is not NHS but a NHS-commissioned technology provider owned by Square Health a provider of private digital healthcare for insurance companies and corporates. In other words GP services being privatised by stealth.

In June 2017, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) found Push Doctor to be providing caring and responsive service, that fell short in areas of safety, effectiveness and leadership. The Commission suggested that Push Doctor were prescribing high-risk medicines to patients without performing essential checks, and in one case had prescribed a medication for a use beyond its stated license. Then-CEO Eren Ozagir claimed that there were factual inaccuracies in the CQC report, and that the guidelines against which the inspection took place were completely new.

In November 2017, the company failed a CQC inspection due to inadequate checks of users' ages and identities – which was then corrected in time for the August 2018 inspection, wherein the company was found to be overprescribing antibiotics.

In July 2018, it was reported that Nicola Blackwood, the former minister for public health and innovation, had joined Push Doctor's advisory board. On reviewing the former MP's new role, the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments stated there was some risk around the potential for Blackwood offering the company an unfair advantage as a result of her time in office.

More here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Push_Doctor

I always thought it was something you had to pay for.
I don't really understand it.

You only pay if your surgery is not linked.

Ok. Very interesting indeed. The triage person on the other end of the phone at my surgery told me that Push Doctor was NHS.

Ah, I see.
So, if your surgery is linked, does that mean your gp could be one of the gps you get to speak to on it?

Push Doctor are based in Manchester. Appointments cost £45.

I can find no online data to show what deal the NHS has with Push Doctor but just as the NHS pays private hospitals to carry out day surgery for some conditions I imagine this will be a similar thing.

Bit-by-bit as our GP surgeries are systematically under-resourced and wound down there will come a time when these companies will be in a position to force us to pay.

We have little choice if we feel unwell and need to speak to someone but it's a slippery slope.

MissAdventure

Ah, I see.
So, if your surgery is linked, does that mean your gp could be one of the gps you get to speak to on it?

I no longer seem to have a GP over the last 2 years as my surgery has been really struggling. I have needed 2 telephone appointments in that time - one was with a yoga instructor who apparently used to be a GP and had been recalled due to the pandemic and Covid absences, another was with a knee surgeon. I googled them once I had their names.

My surgery gave me the link to Push Doctor but I don't think you get to have a video call with a doctor from your own practice. I certainly didn't.

No, it would not be your GP, I assume that if your surgery is too busy and directs the patient to Push Doctor they pay, if you choose this way of contacting a doctor or getting a prescription then you pay £45.

Go to Push Doctor and see if your surgery is linked.

I don’t think it’s so much a matter of surgeries being under-resourced at present as the effects of covid, as I found out when trying to collect a repeat prescription from the pharmacy attached to our surgery, ordered a week beforehand. Four people at the pharmacy were off with covid and two more on annual leave. Result - come back in a couple of days. Just as well I wasn’t out of medication.
The GPs are running businesses contracted to the NHS. People sometimes forget that.

All businesses are vulnerable to Covid absences but they stay open by drafting in staff from elsewhere (unless there is a special regulation that a GP surgery must close completely if someone tests positive). So my question is where are the locums and temp admin staff with surgery experience?

Are the doctors who would have once worked as locums now in Manchester sitting at a screen holding video consultations? I am not arguing that phone or video consultations are not sufficient in some cases. They are but Sparklefizz expressly wanted a face-to-face consultation and was unable to get one and that’s poor.

They are but Sparklefizz expressly wanted a face-to-face consultation and was unable to get one and that’s poor.

My surgery wasn't good before the pandemic, and is much much worse now. I'd like to change practices but as I have a number of ongoing health conditions it's difficult to move to another practice from the admin point of view .... or at least it was 12 years ago when I had to change.

Obviously the continuation of privatisation of the NHS through the back door another year and you ll be paying for the service

No. It is not NHS but a NHS-commissioned technology provider owned by Square Health a provider of private digital healthcare for insurance companies and corporates. In other words GP services being privatised by stealth.

Thank you OakDryad. This is an example of the government’s current plan for the NHS - privatisation by stealth. Allow the system to ‘fall apart’ and sneak in private providers to ‘plug the gaps’. Before we know it, many of the services we currently attribute to the NHS will actually be private, money-making ventures. CLASSIC When Johnson says at PMQs ‘we have a plan for the NHS’, that’s his plan. Of course, he will never openly say ‘we are privatising the NHS’ but, in reality, that’s what he’s doing. Bevin must be ‘turning in his grave’.

Bevan - apologies!

Push Doctor doesn't deal with expensive to treat chronic conditions or anything serious. It leaves standard GP practices to pick up the pieces.