Did Leeds man die because of remote GP appointments?

 

David Nash

David Nash had four remote GP appointments between October and November 2020, but doctors and nurses, failed to diagnose a middle-ear infection that proved to be fatal. The ear infection led to an abscess on his brainstem.

After ringing the NHS number 111, five times, David aged 26, was rushed to hospital where he died two days later. David was never offered an in-person face-to-face appointment, nor was he ever examined by a medical practitioner, despite complaining of lumps on his neck, blood in his urine and a fever. He'd also sent a photograph of the lumps on his neck to his GP practice in Leeds. David was diagnosed by remote consultations as having COVID or flu-like symptoms.

Referring to David's case, NHS England have said: "A face-to-face assessment should have been offered or organised to confirm the diagnosis and initiate definitive management." Andrews mother, Anne Nash, said: "It's been appalling care. I think they've completely let David down...at every single point." In June, the Nuffield Trust published a report in which it stated: "the clinical risk from remote consultations is not yet well understood." An inquest into David's death is to take place early next year.

In September 2021, Alison Mutch, the senior coroner for Greater Manchester South, wrote to the Department of Health, saying that remote GP consultations may have been a factor in the deaths of five patients and was affecting patient care.

Despite findings of this nature, and the deaths of patients like David Nash, many GP's say that face-to-face GP appointments are not necessary. To many people this might sound like quackery and humbug, and they may well ask how you can examine a person's chest or check their pulse or tongue, during a remote consultation. Nevertheless, there have been instances where GP's have asked patients to cough into the phone.

Although the Health Secretary, Therese Coffey, has said that patients should be able to get a non-urgent face-to-face GP appointment within two weeks of requesting it, the doctors union the British Medical Association (BMA), which curiously, also regulates the medical profession, have described this as "hot air", and they have told GP practices that they don't have to comply with this, because there's no contractual obligation to do so, and it is merely an "expectation."