MFT
“ We ' re thinking about how library or other public internet access can be made available , so that people can access care in a different way . We ' re thinking five to 10 years down the line , not just for the next 18 months to two years ”
DR VERONICA DEVLIN CTO , MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY
NHS FOUNDATION TRUST
patients seem to expect it now , and I think now that people have been consulting with their GP like this , we ' ll see this is how a large proportion of the country wants to carry on ."
Her own partner is an example of how beneficial remote consultations can be . Despite living in Scotland , he had complex heart surgery in London , and following that had to travel to London once a year for evaluations . Now this can be undertaken virtually .
" This will be a big difference for us from the point of view of specialist intervention ," she says . " It makes collaboration between his clinician in Scotland and the clinician in London much more feasible , and the communication seems to be much better ."
However , large number of consultations will still need to be carried out by phone in the immediate future , as Greater Manchester has a huge amount of digital poverty . Recent research showed that nine million people in the UK experience digital poverty , having little or no access to the internet ; of this figure , 40 per cent are based in northern England .
" That ' s one of the reasons telephone consultations have remained high , because we have a big digitally excluded
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