In addition, the NHS long-term plan now includes a commitment that every patient will have the right to be offered digital-first primary care by 2023–2024. To support these developments, NHS England has launched the GP Online Consultation Systems Fund and developed an implementation toolkit for online consultations in primary care. The traditional face-to-face consultation is still widely offered, but consultations are also now possible in some medical centres via video call, voice call, instant messaging service or by submitting an electronic form. Such consultations are now available in a range of formats in a patient’s local medical centre.
Public expectations regarding consultations for prescription medicines have also evolved, prompted in part by these technological advances. Over the past 2 decades, there has been a vast increase in the use of online services in all aspects of our daily lives, from internet banking to online grocery shopping.
children, the elderly, those with specific health conditions such as cancer) are exempt from charges, and all prescriptions are free in the rest of the UK (Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland). Prescriptions in England are usually charged at £9.15/item, although some patient groups (e.g. In the UK, consultations with a GP in the National Health Service (NHS) are free. If required, the physician may issue a prescription for medicine that the patient can collect from a pharmacy. Typically, patients attend a face-to-face consultation at a local medical centre in which a physician (commonly a General Practitioner-GP) listens to their concerns, reviews their symptoms, assesses any clinical signs and suggests a management strategy. In many countries, primary care physicians are the main point of contact for healthcare services.