Every GP practice now has to offer online booking
Health / Wed 1st Oct 2025 at 07:48am
FROM today, every GP practice in England will have to offer online appointment bookings throughout the day reports the BBC
The move, ordered by the government, is aimed at reducing the so-called ‘8am scramble’ to get through to practices on the phone.
Surgeries will have to provide the service from 08:00 to 18:30 Monday to Friday.
Alongside requesting non-urgent appointments, patients will also be able to ask questions and describe symptoms and request a call back.
Click below for more details.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjed4qvzjeyo
Mr Bean
2025-10-01 09:29:48
Doesn't matter when all you get is 'No appointments are available'
David Forman
2025-10-01 10:19:07
The British Medical Association is warning the government of a looming ballot for strike action over this. The chair of the BMA’s GPs committee, Dr Katie Bramall, said: "GPs are worried that without any increase in practice capacity, considerable amounts of practice time will be diverted to reviewing the barrage of online requests and queries, thus reducing time for routine appointments and planned patient care.” A bit like the grandiose and empty promises of Mounjaro 'fat jabs' from Wes Streeting that were meant to usher in a new dawn of preventative treatment and later reduced to a trickle by setting a BMI of 40. When it comes to 'snake oil salesmen' Streeting is at the top of the list with Starmer.
David Forman
2025-10-01 10:59:33
The British Medical Association statement is worth a read: https://www.bma.org.uk/bma-media-centre/gps-in-england-give-health-secretary-48-hours-to-avoid-dispute-over-unsafe-online-access-plans
Martin Goodall
2025-10-01 22:45:04
Yes so now you have online access to a computer system that requires you to fill out a triage form that you need to give the right responses to in order to get a HUMAN to even look at it in the hope that you might get an appointment that says "contact the pharmacist at the pharmacy next door for an appointment with him and he will then decide whether ir not you can even have a telephone conversation with a doctor.".. By which time your urgent request for assistance will no longer matter anyway because you are DEAD. People who are really ill cannot easily work get how fill out their triage form with the "right" answers, and that is assuming the the forms are "smart phone" freiendky in the first place or that the would be patient has a smart phone. I like the fact that you have used a picture of "Lister House" (my practice) in your post. They might understand what I have said. We don' need access to a computer doing triage (with or without AI) we need more doctors and MORE AVAILABLE APPOINTMENTS!
Leave a Comment Below:
4 Comments for Every GP practice now has to offer online booking: