Letters: 'Why can't I see my GP face to face?'

Former prime minister Tony Blair is advocating that fully vaccinated people should be able to enjoy greater freedoms than those that have chosen not to be vaccinated, which all sounds to me to be a totally reasonable argument.

There have been many letters written in your paper recently regarding just how difficult it has become to get through to a GP surgery since the onset of the pandemic, let alone to get to speak to a doctor face to face.

Unfortunately, Northants NHS Clinical Commissioning Group have said that face to face appointments won’t be returning anytime soon!

I, like millions of others, have now had my two doses of a coronavirus vaccine, which, in effect, will soon be seen as a vaccine passport.

But, even though I live just 100 yards or so from my GP surgery and have been vaccinated, I am still not able to walk through the doors to make an appointment with a receptionist, let alone be assured of a face-to-face appointment with a GP.

Instead, one has to endure 30 minutes or more of a recorded message telling me what my position is in the queue!

When you do eventually get through, you’ll then have to divulge all the gory details to a receptionist to see if your ailment even warrants a call back from the doctor.

Doctors and their fellow health professionals were some of the first people in the country to receive two doses of the vaccine, which I have no argument with, but, if both doctor and patient are now fully vaccinated, I don’t see what the issue is with going back to face-to-face consultations, be that with a doctor or a receptionist.

When all is said and done, the key workers who sit at supermarket checkouts with just a perspex screen for their safety interact with far more people than any doctor would see on a daily basis, completely oblivious to the fact that the person they are serving may, or may not have even been vaccinated!

Ivan Humphrey,

Kettering