Alternatives to face to face GP consultations V1
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The potential of alternatives to face to face consultation in general practice, and the impact on different patient groups
IRAS ID
168503
Contact name
Chris Salisbury
Contact email
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 9 months, 1 days
Research summary
This study will explore whether consultations by telephone, email or Skype, instead of going to the surgery to see the GP face to face, may be better for patients and the staff in the health centre. We will also aim try to understand how, when and who might benefit from such alternatives.
We will select a variety of GP practices that are either; already using these alternatives regularly, about to start introducing alternatives and ones which have tried using these alternatives in the past but are doing less so now.
In each practice we will interview the staff, as we want to learn what has been tried, why and how they were tried and what was helpful and what was less helpful.We will also interview patients about their consultation with their GP by using an alternative to going to the surgery to see the doctor face to face to understand what they think about this form of consultation, what they think is good and what is less good about this consultation and how not seeing the GP face to face affected the consultation.
We will observe how practices record details of consultations not delivered face to face and measure how frequently this is used, how this has changed over time, and in particular take-up by different patient groups.
This research, based on the actual experience of patients and doctors who have used alternatives to face-to-face consultations, offers new insights than earlier research based on the views of people who have never used them.
Based on their findings, the researchers will make recommendations to practices and provide resources to help them provide alternatives to face-to-face consultations which are likely to be of most benefit to different groups of patients in different types of areas.
REC name
Yorkshire & The Humber - South Yorkshire Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/YH/0135
Date of REC Opinion
25 Mar 2015
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion