I’d refuse ‘GP in your pocket’ AI doctor – Medical Matters with Derry GP Dr. Tom Black

This will be a ‘GP in your pocket’ providing non-urgent care enquiries, providing instant advice and helping patients find the most appropriate service in the NHS.

The AI algorithms will take a history, ask follow-up questions and provide personalised guidance. Managers there have explained that this has had to be done because the GP service has been overwhelmed and this will take the pressure off GP practices.

As a GP of long experience I understand what they’re saying but I don’t know whether their actions are based on ignorance, hypocrisy or Machiavellian vandalism.

The reason I don’t trust these people is because the main reason that the GP Service is being overwhelmed is because of underfunding and understaffing of the GP practices and these are the very people who decided to do this.

So did they underfund the GP Service on purpose so that they could bring in the AI ‘pretend GP Service’ or were their actions simply incompetent.

Noam Chomsky, the American intellectual and philosopher, describes that the standard technique of privatisation is first to defund the service, then make sure things don’t work, get people angry with the service and then hand it over to private capital.

This is exactly what Westminster and Stormont have done with the GP Service in the UK in general and in Northern Ireland reducing the budget with the resultant decrease in service due to underfunding.

The public are now angry, blaming GPs and their staff and are ready to accept an alternative private service.

NHS England note ‘this is about working with third-party technology to work out what the right solution is’.

I don’t know which tech company will be working with the NHS on this GP app but Palantir recently agreed a £330 million, seven year contract with NHS England to act as a prime supplier for the new Federated Data Platform.

These are scary times and losing our traditional GP Service and replacing it with a Phone app possibly run by a major American tech company doesn’t sound like a good idea.

Personally, I wouldn’t handle over my health data in this way as any data sharing means that my confidentiality would be compromised not just in my healthcare but also financial, insurance, social and legal aspects.

I have no doubt that this is going to happen and that the UK will lead on this. It will be welcomed by young, healthy individuals as a quick way to sort out simple issues such as self-limiting illness.

It will however discriminate against the elderly, vulnerable, disabled and patients with complex medical conditions.

If I had a significant medical history, I would not be happy sharing it with big tech and if I could afford it, I would refuse the kind offer of a pretend service by this gormless government, penny pinching with our health and the health of our families.

This is the opposite of democracy and acts as a stimulus for an all Ireland health service as the population in the south wouldn’t put up with this nonsense.