A FEW weeks ago the General Medical Council issued a statement to the effect that 'all GP’s should go back to face-to-face appointments'.

What has happened? Absolutely nothing!

If you currently want to see a doctor, you have to ring around 8am, then ‘if lucky’, you will be told you can have a telephone appointment later in the day.

No time will be specified, so you have to sit in and wait all morning perhaps even into the early afternoon.

Then, ‘IF’ you are granted a face-to-face appointment you still have to wait until the appointed time. You therefore remain trapped at home all day for a 20-minute visit to see your doctor.

This is beyond a joke.

We can go out into society, enter banks, building societies, insurance offices, travel agents, supermarkets, betting shops. I have visited my optician twice, my dentist twice without any issues.

Phone up make an appointment, visit, receive treatment, and as we say, the jobs a good 'un.

Yet the persons most highly trained in viral infections, their treatments and the precautions, cannot be seen face-to-face without this ridiculous procedure taking place.

The dentist, for example, had his face within 18 inches of mine and his fingers in my mouth. He and I are both alive and kicking. So why can’t doctors return to normal?

We are told if it is urgent, phone 101, or if it is serious go to A&E. But A&E are run off their feet with people needing minor treatment issues that a doctor could very easily deal with.

Additionally, are not the A&E doctors at equal or greater risk than GPs?

Time to get back to normal, GPs – the rest of society has moved on, perhaps you should too.

With dentists I am perhaps luckier than most, mine is still an NHS dentist. There seem to be a great many issuing notices that they are going private. In these times of costs increasing across the board, is this really the time to put patients under even more financial pressure?

A friend told me “if he stays with his dentist, it will cost him £16 a month, or £192 a year”. Is this mode of operation being forced on dental practices?

G S Fawcett
By email