• Vikram Sinha, Mohsan Malik, Nora Nugent, Paul Drake, and Naveen Cavale.
• School of Medical Education, King's College London, Great Maze Pond, London, SE1 1UL, UK. vikramsinha@icloud.com.
• Aesthetic Plast Surg. 2021 Apr 1; 45 (2): 777-783.

BackgroundCOVID-19 has led to government enforced 'lockdown' in the UK severely limiting face-to-face patient interaction. Virtual consultations present a means for continued patient access to health care. Our aim was to evaluate the use of virtual consultations (VCons) during lockdown and their possible role in the future.MethodsAn anonymous survey was disseminated to UK and European plastic surgeons via social media, email sharing and via the European Association of Societies of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery newsletter. Uptake of VCons, modality, effectiveness, safety and future utility were assessed.ResultsForty-three senior plastic surgeons responded to the survey. The majority of the respondents (97.7%) reported using VCons during COVID-19 lockdown, of which 74.4% had no prior experience. Two-thirds of surgeons utilised commercial platforms such as Zoom, FaceTime and Skype, 38.1% of respondents did not know about or were unsure about adequate encryption for health care use, and just under a half (47.6%) reported they were unaware of or lacking GDPR compliance. Most (97.6%) say they are likely to use virtual consultations after lockdown.ConclusionVirtual consultations have had a crucial role in patient care during UK lockdown. It is clear that they will serve as an adjunct to face-to-face consultation in the future. Further regulation is required to ensure platforms offer adequate safety and security measures and are compliant with relevant data protection laws.Level Of Evidence IvThis journal requires that authors assign a level of evidence to each article. For a full description of these Evidence-Based Medicine ratings, please refer to the Table of Contents or the online Instructions to Authors www.springer.com/00266 .

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