To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they expect the full range of NHS facilities, such as hospital visiting and booking GP appointments, to return to pre-pandemic levels.
My Lords, NHS services are open to patients and numbers of general practice appointments have returned, or are returning, to pre-pandemic levels. As before the pandemic, hospital visiting is currently at the discretion of NHS trusts. Hospitals are expected to accommodate at least one hour of visiting per day, and preferably more. The department is working closely with the NHS to tackle the Covid-19 backlog and restore pre-pandemic activity and performance as soon as possible.
I thank the Minister for that Answer, but in our local hospital there are very big signs saying that visiting is still not permitted, while it seems to be quite in order for staff who are unvaccinated to go in and out of the hospital at will. What steps are being taken to test unvaccinated staff to ensure that they are not carrying Covid, and can the Minister remind me whether we have repealed the bit of legislation that restricted the number of people who can be in a GP’s surgery?
I thank my noble friend for those questions and will try to answer as many of them as I can. We are aware that this idea of returning to normal is patchy in different parts of the country. Some people have told me that visiting their GP or a hospital is fine, while others have had real trouble. Therefore, when these issues come up, I hope that noble Lords and others make us aware, so that we can ask the NHS what is happening. It is clearly an issue of capacity, but also, some people are trying to get face-to-face appointments with their GPs, while some practices are trying to move towards a technology-based service offering. I am aware of that. GP appointments are up to 60% of what they were pre-pandemic, but we understand that there is progress to be made in other areas.
My Lords, I wonder whether the Minister realises that he could make himself hugely popular in the country if he could persuade GP practice reception facilities to be more user-friendly and welcoming to the clients.
The noble Lord makes an important point, and I can see a lot of agreement, judging by noble Lords’ body language. However, we must always be careful about this issue because patients have had different experiences. I have been speaking to noble Lords about this. Some have told me that it is really good and has gone back to normal; others are having real trouble getting access to a GP or even getting someone to answer a phone in the first place. We must be careful, because if I say, “GPs should be doing more,” I will be criticised for being tough on GPs, but if I say that we must understand that GP practices are under a lot of pressure, I will then be criticised for not pushing hard enough to solve the problem. The pandemic accelerated pre-existing trends. We were already moving more towards the use of technology. Some people were quite happy to contact their GP by phone or online, and we will see some of that. We will never go back to 100% face-to-face, but certainly, patients should be able to have face-to-face appointments unless there are good clinical reasons why they cannot.
My Lords, is it not about time that the Government reformed GP services? Should we not have GP and diagnostic centres replacing traditional GP services? At the moment, many GPs are making thousands of pounds out of buildings that have been paid for by the NHS. When will the Government be getting value for money for taxpayers?
One of the advances we have seen with technology is the community diagnostic centre; these will no longer necessarily be at health centres or GP surgeries. We are looking at rolling them out in the community, in shopping centres and sports stadiums. About 80% of the people on the waiting lists are waiting for diagnostics, so we hope that will be a great way of tackling the waiting list.
My Lords, surveys of parent carers during the pandemic by the Disabled Children’s Partnership reveal that more than 70% of disabled children were unable to access their pre-pandemic levels of therapies and health services, and many of their conditions regressed during the pandemic. How do the Government plan to use wider NHS recovery funding to meet the acute health needs of disabled children and young people?
I thank the noble Baroness for making me aware of this issue. We are aware of a number of front-line services where there is a backlog as a result of the pandemic and not being able to have face-to-face appointments. However, I will have to write to her on the specific case that she raised.
My Lords, on the other side of the question from the noble Lord, Lord Laming, I have it on very good second-hand authority that receptionists are getting an extraordinary amount of abuse from the public. That is one of the problems.
My noble friend raises an important point. No matter how frustrating we might find trying to get an appointment with a GP, there is no room for abuse of our NHS staff—whether GPs, doctors, nurses or other health and care workers. I completely support the point he made.
My Lords, for many patients, the service before the pandemic was not nearly good enough, so our ambition ought to be much higher in the future. Why can we not reform the system by empowering patients with choice and competition? With modern IT services, why can GPs not be paid by appointment and why can patients who choose to not be able to ring round to find a GP who can treat them when and where they want, instead of being restricted to one practice?
The noble Lord makes some really good suggestions. On technology, one of the things we are looking at is why, in this day and age, when you can book appointments online for most other meetings, you cannot for GP practices. We want to make sure that people can book online, by telephone, and in advance—rather than having to phone at 8 am —and also let them choose between different places. We have to look at all these options, but, at the same time, technology is not enough: we also have to change the work processes to match the changes in technology.
My Lords, a problem that I have encountered in Lincolnshire is that when one tries to get a telephone appointment with the GP, one is offered a point in a spectrum of a number of hours. One simply cannot sit at one’s desk waiting for a call back within a spectrum of a number of hours.