In April 2026, the BBC covered our story. Two patients spoke on camera about using DocSelect when the NHS couldn't see them quickly enough. The response has been significant, and the conversation it sparked is one we think is worth having properly.
Is paying for a GP a reasonable choice? A necessary one? Or a symptom of something that has gone badly wrong with the NHS?
We think the honest answer is all three. And as the people who built DocSelect, we want to explain where we stand.
Why We Built DocSelect
We are a group of NHS GPs. We still work in the NHS. We see its strengths every day, and we also see its limits up close.
The BMA's figures make those limits clear. More than 63 million people are now registered with NHS GP practices in England, an increase of nearly 14% since 2015. Over the same period, the number of fully qualified full time equivalent GPs has fallen. In many parts of England, a single GP is responsible for well over 2,000 patients. The BMA's aspirational figure is 1,000.
That gap has real consequences. Patients calling at 8am to find nothing left. Online forms going unanswered the same day. Waits stretching to two weeks for anything that doesn't hit the threshold for urgent triage. According to the BMA, many people are struggling to get an appointment at a time that works for them.
We built DocSelect because we kept seeing that gap in our own work. Not as a way to replace the NHS, but as a way to be available when the NHS couldn't be. We wanted to build something local, trusted, and accessible. A service that brings a qualified doctor to your door when you need one, not when the system happens to have space.
What Our Patients Told the BBC
The BBC spoke to two of our patients. Their accounts were straightforward and, for us, reflected exactly the situations we built DocSelect to address.
One patient fell ill on a Sunday morning. He booked through the app and had a GP at his door within two hours. He described a thorough 40 minute consultation and said it stopped him taking up a space in A&E he was anxious to avoid. He called it money well spent. The other patient had been told by his NHS surgery that it was too busy to see him. He struggles with anxiety, and said that being able to book quickly, without a phone queue or triage form, made a real difference to how he felt.
What strikes us about both accounts is how modest what they needed actually was. Not specialist care. Not an emergency. Just a doctor to see them, on the day, when they were worried. That should not require a private booking. The fact that it did is not something we celebrate. It is something we built a service to address.
The "Paying Twice" Question
We know this question is out there, and we want to answer it honestly rather than sidestep it.
The argument goes like this. The NHS is a universal service funded by taxation. When patients pay for private GP care, they are effectively paying twice. And if people who can afford it go private, it reduces pressure on politicians to properly fund the NHS, making things harder for those who cannot pay.
We understand that concern. We share it, in fact. Nobody who works in the NHS, as our doctors do, is comfortable with the idea that access to care should depend on what you can afford.
Where We Think the Argument Has Limits
The King's Fund has noted that the rise of private general practice raises important questions about equity, because the NHS was founded on access based on need rather than ability to pay. That is right, and it is a principle we believe in.
But here is the other side of it. When a patient uses DocSelect for an urgent concern that would otherwise have gone to A&E or an already full surgery, that is one fewer pressure on the NHS, not one more. Our capacity does not drain the NHS. Our founder put it directly to the BBC: we see ourselves as a complementary service, not competition. We are increasing the total capacity available, not redirecting resource away from it.
The BMA has also noted that one of the things patients most value about private GP services is seeing the same doctor and having clear clinical responsibility for their care. That continuity matters. It improves outcomes. And it is something the NHS, under current pressures, often struggles to provide.
We are not the solution to the NHS crisis. We would never claim to be. That solution requires long term investment in the workforce and infrastructure that makes general practice sustainable. What we are is a practical option for the moments in between, for the Sunday illnesses, the evening concerns, and the days when the system simply cannot move at the speed your health requires.
Our Commitment to Standards
Every DocSelect GP is GMC registered and fully qualified. As a provider of regulated clinical activities, we are held to the same standards as NHS practices, overseen by the Care Quality Commission. The care you receive from us is not a lesser version of what you'd get from your NHS doctor. It is delivered by people who, in many cases, are your NHS doctor.
Our membership plans (launching in September 2026) are designed to make private GP access predictable and affordable for families, not just for people with deep pockets.
What the Coverage Means to Us
Being featured by the BBC matters to us, not for the publicity, but because the patients who spoke did so honestly and on the record. They described real experiences of a service that worked when other options had run out. That is exactly what we set out to build, and hearing it reflected back independently means a great deal.
It also means the conversation about private GP care is happening at a national level in a way it hasn't before. We welcome that conversation. We think patients deserve clear, honest information about what their options are, what private care does and doesn't cover, and how to make decisions that are right for their circumstances.
Where We Stand
We believe the NHS is worth fighting for. We also believe that in 2026, patients should not be left without care because the system is full. Those two things are not in contradiction.
If your NHS practice is meeting your needs, use it. The NHS provides extraordinary care, and a long term relationship with your registered GP has genuine value we would never try to replicate.
But if you are in one of the situations the system struggles with, an urgent concern after hours, a symptom that won't wait, a child unwell on a Saturday evening, we are here. A qualified, local GP at your door. The same clinical standards. A doctor who has time to listen.
We are proud of what the patients who spoke to the BBC said. We are proud of the GPs who delivered that care. And we are committed to making sure that as the conversation about private GP access grows, DocSelect is the kind of service that makes that conversation easier, not harder.
Find out more about who we are, read more on the DocSelect blog, or message us on WhatsApp. Same day home visits and online consultations, 7am to 11pm, 7 days a week.
