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GPs offered £150k to provide online consultations from home

A private health insurer is claiming GPs can earn up to £150,000 per year working from home on its online consultation service.

Vitality – formerly PruHealth – is looking for 10 UK-based GPs to staff the online GP service offered to all of its health insurance customers.

The GPs would have to undertake 20 hours of training, within a fortnight, after which the health insurer is promising pay of £60 per hour.

It follows moves by other firms to offer online consultations with private GPs, as reported by Pulse, although they have been criticised as ‘Martini medicine’ by GP leaders.

GPs will provide 15-minute GP consultations via webcam and authorise electronic private prescriptions.

The advert – which has been placed in Pulse and featured in Roy Lilley’s NHS Manager’s blog – said the UK-based company is aiming to expand its recruitment of GPs ‘as quickly as possible as it is proving to be an extremely successful service’, adding that interested GPs ‘could potentially earn up to £150k per year just for working from home’.

Following training, which includes online modules as well as a face-to-face IT system training session, GPs can book in for ‘flexible’ shifts during Monday to Friday 8am-7pm and 9am to 1pm on Saturdays when the service is available.

The news comes as Pulse reported last month on a new online service offering patients 10-minute online GP consultations via video link for £25 per session. The new service – called Push Doctor – has a network of more than 7,000 GPs who are available from 6am to 10pm for appointments, and works through an app that patients can download.

NB: This article has been produced independently by the Pulse editorial team, with no influence or payment made by the advertiser.