Private healthcare provider Bupa has announced a new ‘Netflix-style’ GP subscription service starting at around £200 a year.
The company is offering a remote same-day GP appointment service for £16.99 a month.
Those wanting the option of face-to-face appointments can sign up for £21.66 a month.
Both models, which are only available to over-18s, offer free prescription delivery and access to the Anytime HealthLine staffed around the clock by nurse advisors, the company said.
But Bupa strongly advised patients to also remain registered with an NHS GP, ‘just in case of any future medical emergency’.
Medical notes will be shared with a patient’s NHS GP with permission from the individual, the company said.
If further tests or specialist referral is needed, there may be extra costs involved which would be explained during the consultation, an FAQ noted.
A survey done by Bupa had found that a third of Brits find it difficult to get a GP appointment and 22% say they wait on average between three to seven days to see a GP, an announcement.
Carlos Jaureguizar, CEO for Bupa Global, India & UK, said: ‘We know that being able to see a GP when needed, gives people peace of mind.
‘Our new GP subscription service will provide more support, giving them face-to-face access to GPs in our 54 health clinics, as well as remotely.’
Following a £311m uplift to GP contractual funding for 2024/25 confirmed last month, NHS practices will receive £112.50 per patient per year but the BMA said this still leaves practices ‘struggling’ to survive.
Doctors’ Association UK spokesperson Dr Steve Taylor said Bupa was taking advantage of NHS GPs’ struggle to get the funding needed to meet demand.
‘The cost of £17/£21.66 a month seems like a good deal, until you compare this with funding provided for NHS GPs, who receive less than half this a month.
‘With NHS GPs providing an average of seven appointments a year, prescriptions, referrals and access to NHS services. The Bupa service shows the true cost of providing the services needed for patients, and it’s no wonder access is increasingly limited.’
He added: ‘Sadly it is potentially a step closer to a model of provision similar to dentistry, which we know has become a two-tier service of those that can afford care and those that can’t.’
Dr Dave Triska, a GP in Surrey, said: ‘It’s a very reasonable fee (seems little, a couple of bottles of wine a month) for a private service, and at essentially double what NHS gets it’s extraordinary that we can function and provide a comprehensive service to patients.
‘The fact that Bupa find this a viable business model is a testament to the resilience of NHS General practice and the crushing need to fund it appropriately, at the 10% uplift.’
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Fits the UK wealth inequality model well. Everything will be fine for the ever reducing pool of people with money.
Cherry picking like Babylon but for a fee. Free delivery not free presciption. Does it have a fair use policy or unlimited use!
From the description (‘access to the Anytime HealthLine staffed around the clock by nurse advisors’) this would appear to be a category mistake. The service appears to offer an urgent care service model more like 111, and not at all like traditional general practice.
It also appears to offer this (significantly dumbed-down) service at a cost far in excess of the cost of actual NHS general practice – once again highlighting how massively underfunded – and also undervalued – we are.
The flaws of this model – the same one NHSE seems wedded to – are many, and well-described elsewhere.
I have no doubt it will be successful, at least in terms of making BUPA lots of money (especially downstream, with investigations and referrals).