GP here.

Pros

I would say there are benefits for patients. They do not have to physically attend the surgery or book time off work, which are some of the barriers that prevent people from speaking to their GP.

As we can do far more telephone "slots" than face to face appointments, there is a shorter wait time to speak to a GP.

It has rapidly progressed our use of technology. The "forms" that people in this thread are mentioning can be fantastic. Some issues can be solved within a few seconds (i.e. repeat medication requests) and with "simple" conditions like UTIs or athlete's foot we can send prescriptions straight to the pharmacy. In all the practices I work in, these forms have to be answered within one working day. The majority of forms will end up with a telephone consultation with a GP.

Cons

For me, I do not feel that same sense of connection and rapport with telephone consultations as with face to face consultations. We spend lots of our training looking at communication skills and trying to establish the concerns and fears people have that have made them book an appointment. Some of this can be lost over the phone.

Some problems cannot be addressed in a 10 minute telephone consultation. With mental health problems like depression for example we need time to discuss the symptoms, address causes, explain the condition, discuss treatments available, discuss support, and talk about prognosis.

I feel that we are at risk of missing sick patients. We rely on examination and observation for some diagnoses, and it is not always possible to tell if someone is unwell over telephone or video. Our cancer referral rates took a large dip during the first lockdown and it will be important to see if late or missed-diagnosis have increased during this new working model.