Digitally enabled primary care : the emperor’s new clothes?

Digital technologies are seen as a key part of a modernised NHS that offers quick, convenient, and acceptable care that makes better use of clinician time.1 The NHS Long Term Plan2 asserts that digitally enabled primary care will go ‘mainstream’ across the NHS and corresponding changes have been made to the new GP contract with all practices expected to offer online consultation by April 2020 at the latest. But will digitally enabled primary care offer the solutions to the challenges facing general practice