One woman widowed by the scandal was Lisa King, whose 62-year-old husband Peter was denied an appointment in July last year despite complaining of stomach pains.
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Listen to Joy s story, as told by her husband Nick, on this week s Planet Normal podcast with Allison Pearson and Liam Halligan, from 20:49 on the audio player below:
All patients will now have the right to see a doctor face-to-face if that is their preference. However, the BMA said the new instructions amounted to a “rebuke” to efforts so far, whereby just over half of appointments are conducted in person.
Dr Richard Vautrey, the chairman of the union’s GP committee, said: “They [GPs] do not want to be call centre clinicians but do want to get back to seeing more of their patients face-to-face. But this cannot happen overnight and there must be honesty around the current state of play.”