DURING a "very challenging" time in the healthcare sector, a St Helens GP emphasised that professionals are "always trying to help patients as much as possible".
The evolving nature of the primary care sector means that patients now receive health assessments via online, phone, or face-to-face consultations.
These changes have caused upset in the community with many finding it more difficult to see a doctor for routine appointments, but as Hall Street Medical Centre GP Principal David Reade explains, this shift was happening even before the pandemic.
With declining numbers of doctors and an ever-increasing demand of patients, GP surgeries were slowly moving toward more online and phone consultations prior to the pandemic to reduce the backlog of patients.
With an average of "around 25% of patients needing to be seen physically", Dr David Reade said this new method was improving pressures until coronavirus "compounded the whole situation".
Dr Reade said: "The primary care sector has been struggling with the workload for a number of years [...] but the shift to online and phone consultations was seen as an innovative way to deal with this, as not everybody needs to be seen face to face.
"The pandemic compounded the whole situation and accelerated the pressures we were already facing [...] where we are physically unable to meet the demand for face-to-face appointments.
"People often think that is us putting a barrier up but it's not the case; we are now able to see more patients by directing them to a person better suited to your needs."
With the demand of patients continuing to "outstrip the availability of appointments", Dr Reade said that this new way of working is a necessary and successful tool to get through the backlog.
Giving patients the choice of how they would like to be assessed, the new triage system has allowed healthcare professionals to see more patients than ever before; speeding up the referral process so that people can be assessed by a more suitable clinician.
There are also mobile teams for homebound residents, while people can ask for a face-to-face appointment if they aren't satisfied with their online or phone consultation.
Dr Reade accepted that during the pandemic and the shift to online triage, certain diagnoses have been missed while routine appointment waiting lists have continued to rise.
There are improvements to be made, he said, but hopes patients can understand the reasoning behind the shift in healthcare.
Dr Reade added: "We have tried to create a system that caters for everybody and protects everybody.
"Not everybody needs to be seen face-to-face and I understand that this is a concern for some people, so we don't dictate people and they are free to choose a face-to-face appointment.
"There have things that have worked well and are still working well within this shift so we want to keep a hold of this, and let go of the things that aren't working.
"I want to reassure people that we are doing our best to help patients as much as we possibly can, and are always on the lookout to improve things."
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