GP surgeries are having to transform the way they hold appointments after lockdown rules mean there are fewer face-to-face consultations. In Northamptonshire the majority of GP appointments were face-to-face before the country was placed on lockdown and doctors are now facing the challenge of switching quickly to phone or video call consultations. Just 12 per cent of GP appointments in Corby Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) were on the phone or video call and 18 per cent of appointments in Nene CCG were held this way between February 2019 to February 2020. These two CCGs have now become NHS Northamptonshire CCG and GP clinical lead, Dr Naomi Caldwell, said: “In our county we have moved from just a handful of practices offering online consultation as recently as a year ago to nearly all of them offering it before COVID-19.” GPs in Northants normally see more than 80 per cent of patients face-to-face, so doctors are having to quickly change the way they work. Dr Caldwell said some of these changes were already happening before the pandemic because for some people it is more convenient to speak to their GP remotely. She added: “Everyone has had to make changes to their everyday lives as a consequence of coronavirus, and over the past few weeks we’ve seen patients really embrace these different approaches to managing their health. “Once the pandemic is over we want to continue to ensure that they continue to be widely available to all those who want to use them. “In the meantime, it’s really important for people to remember that even in the current climate they should always seek help for medical problems if they need it – and they can continue to contact their GP practice for advice in the usual way.” Dr Caldwell added that there are special arrangements in place to ensure people can be seen face-to-face if it is clinically appropriate. Across the UK, just seven per cent of GP contact is currently face-to-face according to the Royal College of GPs (RCGP) chairman, who praised the profession’s “remarkable response”. Professor Martin Marshall, chairman of RCGP and a GP in Newham, London, said: “The GP profession has changed dramatically in just three weeks. “Around 40 per cent of patients were triaged (on the phone) before and around 85 per cent of consultations took place face-to-face. “Now 100 per cent are triaged (on the phone) and around seven or eight per cent are face-to-face.” He said the majority of consultations are now happening on the phone, rather than by video link. Professor Marshall said: "People are pretty happy with doing assessments over the phone and they are proving effective.” He said there were occasions where a video appointment was beneficial, particularly in the case of assessing skin rashes, but even in these cases emailed photos of the affected area could aid phone appointments. Professor Marshall said switching to video appointments was more complicated. He said: “Implementing wide-scale remote consulting is going to be more challenging for some practice than others – particularly given the pace at which general practice is having to make these changes. “There remain resource and technical challenges to overcome, and some of these might be particularly difficult in remote and rural areas.” Age UK are urging doctors not to drop home visits and to seek out vulnerable patients "proactively". There were 3,283 home visits in Corby CCG last year and 10,136 in Nene CCG. Senior health influencing manager at Age UK, Tom Gentry, said: "No one should be told outright that they should not be visited in their own home.” He also said GPs should be proactive in contacting people known to have underlying conditions and said: "It's about not waiting for people to deteriorate and it's about reaching out to them first."