GPs to seek legal advice over smartphone appointment service

GPs’ representatives are to seek legal advice in a bid to challenge the rollout of a service offering “virtual” GP consultations to patients by smartphone.

An emergency motion passed by England’s local medical committees has demanded that the BMA’s General Practitioners Committee seek “urgent legal advice regarding the options available and the potential for a judicial review” to challenge the introduction of the GP at Hand service, which is being piloted in west London.

The motion, passed at last week’s annual conference of LMCs, which represent GPs locally, said that it “deplores” the use of public funds to promote “inequitable access …