Member

Face-to-face consultations are not required by the Bill. There has been a lot of talk about how the person may not be alone in the room and the various interactions that may occur outside the vision of the consulting doctor at the time. I fully accept that patients may be reluctant to travel, for a variety of reasons, but that is not the only criterion to be considered. The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, referred to the Transform Justice report on how video links endanger communication in court trials, with 70% of respondents finding it difficult to understand whether someone on a video had a disability. That is a basic starting point. The inability to observe things such as non-verbal cues is also a major problem with virtual consultations.