Babylon: GP at hand - all thoughts welcome

[MichaelMumsnet]

Hi folks,

Mumsnet is looking to team up with Babylon to promote their free NHS "GP at hand" service (available to people living or working within 40 minutes of a GP at hand clinic) and Babylon’s paid online doctor (available to all UK residents).

Babylon offers both a free NHS and private 24/7 GP service, which lets members have virtual doctor’s appointments from their mobile, arrange prescriptions for local collection and get specialist referrals.

To get the service for free, you need to live or work within 40 minutes of a GP at hand clinic and switch your registered NHS GP practice to GP at hand, Babylon’s NHS offering. When you register for GP at hand, you will be de-registered from your current GP practice. If you’d prefer to stay with your current GP, you can use the Babylon service on a pay as you go or subscription basis for quick, easy access to doctors anytime.

If you’re not sure whether you need to see a doctor, Babylon offers an AI symptom checker which you can access for free via their app. The app also has a handy tool called Healthcheck, which creates a free health report for you and suggests changes you can make to live a healthier lifestyle.

We think these services could be genuinely useful to parents (and non-parents) and we'd love to know what you think too – all thoughts and comments gratefully received!

MNHQ

I would most definitely use it. Currently paying to go to a private GP as it is impossible to get an appointment at my surgery as full of old people.

However, the likes of Babylon will not be around for very long, as these digital solutions are a long term goal of the NHS, and on-line digital services will eventually be the norm for GP appointments and hospital outpatient appointments. There are a few GP practices already trialing these systems, and are proving to be popular and efficient.

OlderThanAverageforMN

You make it all sound so reasonable and innocuous, so progressive and natural. "It's digital, therefore it must be A Good Thing." Cogito, ergo sum!

You're part of the only factor that makes all this depersonalisation and derealisation of the Social Contract inevitable - blind obedience to market forces.

Ah, where would neoliberalism be without good old sensible Middle England?

I wouldn't use a service like that.
phone apponments with my regular gp, yes if that's appropriate or as triage.

but as many pp said, this service is flawed, potentially dangerous and the data protection looks questionable at best.

Here we go, commercialisation of healthcare by the back door, undermining our poor old NHS yet again.

NO NO NO NO NO.

Let your Tory cronies paddle their own canoe JustineMumsnet, there are some business propositions that are just not worth it.

This would be the last nail in the coffin for me if you get into bed with this lot, & I think would lose you a LOT of members.

reenchant Don't knock until you've tried it. Diabetes care is being revolutionised by digitisation. Rather than depersonalising care, it is the very opposite, providing real time data, to respond to each individual patients needs in a timely manner, resulting in better care, and better long term outcomes.

Nothing wrong with the NHS utilising digital technology,

Plenty wrong with this though, as has already been stated.

If Babylon is 'endorsed by Mumsnet' I too will leave.

But, back to the original post, no Babylon is not the answer, but a progressive NHS is.

If you continue this partnership I’m boycotting mumsnet.

Really shocked and disappointed with MN .

A bizarre choice of partnership.

Would appreciate some feedback from MN HQ regarding the responses so far.

OlderThanAverageforMN

Excellent to know that for certain health conditions, digital adjuncts are proving valuable. Thank you for that info. And yes the NHS must be progressive, in order to remain robust and sustainable. But as you say, Babylon isn't the answer. It claims to be addressing issues of provision and convenience but is actually part of a cynical campaign to further erode communities and isolate people. It's not good enough. Let people who want private online healthcare knock themselves out, by all means, but this 'initiative' mustn't be allowed to replace or even compromise provision for the very human need for in-person, face to face relationship-based community primary care. Sadly, it will become a flagship project for a more sinister large-scale development if organisations like Mumsnet help birth it

I have asked MNHQ for a response although I suspect they don't really want to hear it! (happy to be proved wrong!)

This is a terrible idea MNHQ and I can only assume this has not been properly thought through.
Very disappointed.

Also very disappointed to see Mumsnet supporting the back door privatisation of the NHS.

I like GP at Hand. My previous NHS doctor was a joke. Just thinking about him makes my blood boil. Not only was he incompetent, I struggled to make appointments because of his harpy like receptionists. They couldn't get their head around the fact I needed regular appointments and I had a job.

No, I don't want to wait for a call back from a GP at an undisclosed time to triage me for the appointment everyone already knows I need because I have a disability. I have a job. I can't keep checking my phone for a call that may happen at any time. And then, no, I can't come in for an appointment at 5.30 without any notice. I have to plan for an appointment. 5.30 is not after work. Ignoring my commute, I am still at work at 5.30 like everyone else in my profession.

With GP at hand, I book a 10-minute slot during my lunch hour with less than an hour's notice, and everything gets resolved without jeopardising my health or my career.

Yes, I don't get the same GP each time. But my previous GP was an utter waste of space so I really don't care who I see, as long as they're not him.

As for taking funding away from complex patients - I have my own health needs and they were not being met when I was a patient at a traditional practice. So, no, not a terrible idea. A brilliant idea. Now I can actually get prescriptions for the drugs that keep me alive.

Sorry, not sorry.

I know some people in London with great GPs, others with terrible ones like my old GP. It's a postcode lottery. If you're currently losing in that lottery, this is a game changer.

MN can be so self-righteous sometimes. No one needs to apologise for signing up to a service that actually allows them to access healthcare.

I too will boycott mumsnet if this goes ahead.

It’s bad for patients and doctors and undermines the NHS

Please rethink.

Babylon's advert on the tube states that you have to leave your NHS GP in order to sign up with Babylon. Thus depriving NHS GPs of much-needed funding. So I am opposed to the privatisation of NHS services and Mumsnet should not be supporting Babylon

pringlecat I'm glad it's worked for you, especially having had a crap GP before.

However it (the scheme)undermines the existing very many excellent GP services who will not get the funding needed to keep those excellent services which we should ALL get, free of charge.

Good evening, all.
Thanks so much for contributing all your thoughts to this thread so far - we're taking note of your responses and will get back to you soon.
Kim

Would they even take me on? In London, so guess I’d qualify geographically. But I’m living with cancer so both I and my cohabitants have some fairly non-standard care.

Does look as if they're trying to cream off certain (low demand) patients.

If you are young and single and with an uncomplicated family medical history, the having a sort-of private GP makes sense because it is convenient. Not sure it works so well for families.

Does look as if they’re trying to cream off certain (low demand) patients. Yes. That’s private medicine all over.

As a disabled person myself, I'm more reliant than ever on face to face contact and an enduring relationship with my GP practice (not limited to one GP, I might add). Not least because, when I have to once again prostitute my health conditions and disability before the likes of ATOS and Maximus, I've taken some comfort from knowing that my flesh and blood, three dimensional 'realness' to my GPs makes them more likely to support me in the event that the DWP's henchmen contact them. I very much doubt the likes of Babylon would be that willing and effective in such a scenario.

But I'm also thinking about the occasions on which a GP has been able to check for lumps, bumps, swellings, rashes, etc. before making a diagnosis, or deciding whether or not to refer me to a hospital. When that has been necessary, it has been relatively efficient and significant. When a physical examination has concluded that I don't need a referral, precious NHS resources have been saved.

I've had to do the legwork and shop about for a practice in my borough (Greenwich) since I moved here over 12 years ago, but it was worth it. I think it's unlikely that any borough in London has absolutely no decent medical centres. I asked friends and colleagues for recommendations and found one I've been with happily now for 11 years.

@MissMarplesBloomers To be blunt, it's hard to care about the alleged "very many excellent GP services" when you can't access any GP services, let alone mediocre ones.

GP at Hand plugs a gap in the NHS - it provides a solution for Londoners who work long hours and work far away from their GP surgery because they're forced to register near where they live and are forced to live far away from their workplaces due to the cost of living.

It might not be suitable for everyone everywhere, but it is a solution for some people and everyone deserves access to an NHS GP. I've gone from feeling helpless and angry about being unable to get a prescription for life-preserving meds to feeling confident that I can book a consult and get a same day script any time I need one.

Before GP at Hand, I was at the point where I was trying to budget whether I could afford my medicine privately, despite having already stumped up for a pre-paid prescription card. It's not the cost of seeing a doctor privately that is the barrier, it's the fact that you then have to get a private script and drugs cost a small fortune when they're not subsidised on the NHS. People shouldn't have to be doing sums to figure out if they are afford to get hold of basic meds to manage their disabilities and maintain a normal quality of life.

All basic healthcare should be funded by taxes. If the existing GP model is broken, something has to change - and I'm very pleased with GP at Hand so far. I can finally access basic healthcare. It's sad that this was a victory rather than a given.

The people who are so against Babylon should feel grateful that they are apparently lucky to live in a part of the UK where they can make a doctor's appointment and get seen for something that requires a doctor's appointment before their health is jeopardised. Believe me, that's not the case everywhere in the UK.

Even in London the service varies hugely in boroughs. Absolute postcode lottery.

NO just no!

Privatisation by the back door and in such a way as to seriously let down the most in need of healthcare - like me, like my dd.

I too would seriously reconsider being an mn member if you do go ahead with this.

AWFUL idea.

Eh?

No.

Really bad idea MN.

Really bad.