GPs in England threaten action over online appointment booking plan

GPs in England are threatening to take action over government plans to increase patients’ online access to appointments which they say will lead to a “tsunami” of extra demand.

Ministers have been given 48 hours to put in place measures to stop GPs being overwhelmed when the new system – intended to help patients beat “the 8am scramble” – starts on Wednesday.

The British Medical Association (BMA) agreed a deal with NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) in February that will let patients request an appointment with a family doctor using online booking between 8am and 6.30pm from Monday to Friday.

The doctors’ union claims ministers have broken a promise made then to implement “necessary safeguards” before 1 October to ensure that patients only sought non-urgent consultations online.

The BMA says the extension of digital booking to everyone will overload GPs and risk patient safety.

The chair of the BMA’s GPs committee, Dr Katie Bramall, said the introduction of the system “will likely lead to the creation of hospital-style waiting lists in general practice”.

The union also says the move will lead to family doctors being able to see fewer patients face to face because they will be too busy assessing the all-day stream of requests for a consultation.

“Online systems currently cannot distinguish between non-urgent and urgent patient queries, and with practices already understaffed and overworked, GPs fear this could lead to potentially serious and life-threatening problems being delayed or missed entirely,” the BMA said.

“Doctors will need to be reallocated away from booked appointments to manage the potential online triage tsunami, leading to fewer GP appointments with patients.

“GPs are worried that without any increase in practice capacity, considerable amounts of practice time will be diverted to reviewing the barrage of online requests and queries, thus reducing time for routine appointments and planned patient care.”

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Source: The Guardian, 29 September 2025