Very few GPs have plans to offer consultations by email or over the internet, according to the findings of a survey published today.

The survey was carried out as part of the Alt-Con project, a collaboration between Bristol, Oxford, Edinburgh and Exeter Universities.

It is exploring alternatives to face-to-face consultations, and why these alternatives have not been used more widely in general practice. The team sent a postal survey to 421 general practices, with 319 replies.

Most practices (72%) frequently have telephone consultations but only 8% hold email consultations. The majority (63%) had no plans to introduce this. None were currently offering internet consultations and only 7% were considering it.

Full results are published today (25 May) in The British Journal of General Practice.

“Despite policy pressure to introduce consultations by email and internet video, there is a general reluctance among GPs to implement alternatives to face-to-face consultations,” write the team, led by

Dr Heather Brant of Bristol University. “This identifies a substantial gap between rhetoric and reality in terms of the likelihood of certain alternatives (email, video) changing practice in the near future.”

Co-author Professor Chris Salisbury added: “The survey results show that, since few people are actually using email or internet video in general practice, views about the pros and cons of alternative forms of consultation are largely speculative and based on anecdote rather than evidence.

“The general reluctance to adopt alternatives to face-to-face consultations means the situation is unlikely to change soon unless general practices can see clear advantages from introducing new ways of consulting.”

The next stage of the research will involve in-depth case studies with a number of practices that have attempted to use different alternatives to face to face consultations.

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