WFH family doctor conducts online consultations from her Cornish home that’s 260 MILES away from patients: Fury as GP works ‘remotely’ despite West Sussex surgery in ‘high demand’
- Dr Justine Hall is one of three doctors at Rudgwick Medical Centre in Horsham
- Patients left furious after discovering she works from other side of the country
- Surgery says NHS health bosses ‘have supported remote working in our area’
A GP has been conducting online consultations for her West Sussex surgery patients some 260 miles away from the comfort of her Cornish home, it emerged today.
Dr Justine Hall is one of three doctors listed as working at Rudgwick Medical Centre in Horsham, West Sussex and has her name in bold lettering on the gold nameplate outside the surgery.
The surgery has recently been experiencing ‘high demand’ for its services, according to a recorded message from Dr Hall herself.
However, patients have been left furious at the revelation that she is working from home in Falmouth rather than seeing them face-to-face.
The surgery’s website states that Dr Hall holds ‘remote working’ consultations on Wednesdays and Thursdays and has been ‘working locally’ to Guildford, Surrey – around a 30-minute drive away – since 2015.
But Dr Hall now lives near the Cornish seaside, even further away from Horsham locals desperate for appointments amid growing concerns over waiting times.
Dr Justine Hall is one of three doctors listed as working at Rudgwick Medical Centre in Horsham, West Sussex
One patient, who asked to remain anonymous, told the Telegraph: ‘I was staggered when I was told she had moved to Cornwall. They are only offering remote appointments.
‘For some diagnoses you need to see someone, and yet they think it’s ok to have the number two doctor in the practice living in Cornwall.
‘It’s just outrageous. It used to be a very highly thought-of practice and now it’s not.’
It comes as figures last week revealed that just one in eight GP appointments are carried out face-to-face at England’s worst-performing practices.
The Government’s first ever ‘league table’, designed to ‘name and shame’ surgeries into seeing more patients in-person, shows 12 per cent of consultations were in-person in October at some practices across London.
This is just a fraction of the national average of 71 per cent — the highest since before Covid.
Practice-by-practice data, which ministers claim will help patients make ‘more informed choices’ about where they choose to be treated, also suggested that some surgeries provided no same-day appointments for poorly patients.
Nationally, one in five patients waited more than two weeks to be seen — an all-time high.
A senior figure at the Royal College of GPs also admitted recently that doctors went ‘too far’ with remote appointments at the height of the Covid pandemic.
A spokesman for Rudgwick Medical Centre told the Telegraph: ‘We aim to provide the very best care for our patients.
‘If any patients have concerns about any aspect of their care, we would encourage them to contact us directly so we can investigate their concerns through our complaints procedure.
‘For a number of years our commissioners and NHS England have supported remote working in our area.’
Dr Hall has been approached for comment.
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