Britain’s GP crisis could be eased by allowing Singapore-based doctors to offer virtual appointments to patients, a think tank has claimed.
The Social Market Foundation (SMF) argued that Singapore’s doctors would help reduce waste and inefficiency and instead “rescue our beleaguered national health service” from its “serious decline”.
Disgruntled patients have abandoned NHS surgeries in favor of going private amid the appointments crisis. Others have visited A&E, which campaigners say has put additional pressure on overwhelmed emergency units.
The SMF also argued that “polyclinics”, where patients battling chronic illnesses are treated by a team of doctors, nurses and health coordinators, would be a cost-effective solution to address the post-Covid NHS backlog.
He said Singapore spends 4.4 per cent of its national income on healthcare – less than half that of the UK – but “enjoys much better outcomes”.
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Its infant mortality rate is also half that of the UK, while its population has a lower obesity rate and longer life expectancy.
With Britons already using remote health services involving Singaporean GPs, it would be a “natural” next step to allow doctors to prescribe medicines to patients in the UK, according to the SMF newspaper.
His practice also complies with the Guidelines on Public Hospitals and Medical Clinics, “ensuring a high standard of medical care,” he added.
If the move was successful, the NHS could commission the service for rural areas, which suffer from limited access to local GPs.
The latest NHS figures show that 17.6 million appointments that took place in England in 2023 were booked a month early, or one in 20.
This is an increase of more than a third in the space of a year.
Almost a fifth of appointments (17.5 percent) were booked a fortnight in advance, an increase from 15.2 percent in 2022.
Under other recommendations in the document, “polyclinics” should also be established in parts of England with less access to primary care services.
These clinics would combine primary care physician services with laboratories capable of performing diagnostic tests and multidisciplinary teams that can care for people with chronic illnesses.
In his foreword to the newspaper, former Health Minister Lord Norman Warner argued that “the time has come to review these ideas and draw on Singapore’s experience.”
He added: ‘Politicians know that radical change is necessary, but they are afraid to explain what is needed to their electorate.
“Part of the problem is that they lack models that they can turn to and cite as a way forward.”
‘Polyclinics’ were first introduced in the UK in 2008, when Lord Darzi, then Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Health Minister, attempted to establish ‘one-stop shops’ across the country.
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But the plans were soon abandoned, with the British Medical Journal calling them “expensive white elephants”.
They were decommissioned during the coalition government.
According to the 2023 GP Patient Survey, a survey of 759,000 Brits, only seven in ten (71.3 per cent) described their overall experience with their GP practice as ‘good’ overall. Satisfaction has fallen to an all-time low.
Less than half of patients (49.8 percent) also said they find it easy to contact their GP by phone, down from 52.7 percent in 2022 and 80.8 percent in 2012.
Under recommendations put in place by the BMA and the European General Practitioners Union, GPs in the UK today should make no more than 25 appointments a day to ensure “safe care”.
But some doctors are reportedly having to see nearly 90 patients a day in some areas amid an appointment crisis.
Nationally, there were 27,487 fully qualified, full-time equivalent GPs working in England in December, equivalent to one GP for every 2,078 patients, on average.
Health chiefs say the ratio of patients to each qualified GP should never exceed 1,800.