One of the funniest scenes in The Office is when David Brent tries to pass himself off as a keen reader of the novels of Dostoyevsky, by scanning a few lines about him on Wikipedia.

The hapless boss is easily exposed by a young intern who has studied the Russian author at university and his ruse backfires in typically toe-curling fashion.

The scene plays on the conceit of the internet expert, which was still a comparatively new concept when the sitcom was first aired in the early 2000s, but it remains funny today, a generation later, because so little has changed.

Experience may have taught us to distinguish those who have a genuine knowledge of a subject from those who have typed a few terms into a search engine, but it hasn’t stopped the quick-fixers and shortcut-takers from continuing to make an arse of themselves, and none more so, than in the field of medicine. We even have a term for it: Dr Google.

We all know at least one of those self-diagnosers and self-medicators, for whom a few minutes at a keyboard is more than an adequate substitute for seven years of study at medical school – those Kevins and Karens who will bore you for hours at a time about ailments they claim to have, based on a few non-existent symptoms.

They are the very people who came to mind when I read about the Government’s new plans for a “doctor in your pocket”.

Read more by Carlos Alba

This new NHS app is apparently the future of health service delivery in the UK, replacing outpatient appointments with a new system of automated information, digital advice, direct input from specialists and patient-initiated follow-ups.

The app, it is claimed, will replace two-thirds of outpatient appointments – which currently cost the NHS in........

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