COVID-19: a danger and an opportunity for the future of general practice

For decades there have been calls for general practice to change established ways of working. In response we have seen pockets of innovation from a few, amid a cautious evolutionary process of adaptation from the majority. With good reason, many GPs were attached to their time-honoured working practices. No need was seen by most for radical transformation. a few weeks between mid-March and early April 2020, general practice changed utterly, and voluntarily, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Before the crisis a minority of practices used doctor-led triage as the access point for services; within weeks nearly all were doing so. Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) analysis of general practice appointments data shows that before the crisis >70% of consultations were carried out face-to-face; within weeks the figure was 23%. Before the crisis clinical workload had become unsustainable; within weeks year-on-year comparisons showed that the number of consultations carried out by practices had reduced by 24%.1 Before the crisis administrative tasks and regulatory compliance diverted practices from direct patient care; within weeks year-on-year comparisons reported a 30% reduction in time spent on such activities.