Remote consultation has become a key pillar of primary care in the UK. Recently, private firms have been hiring GPs from overseas to provide care, representing a shift from remote consultation within local services to a model without geographical boundaries. Although UK-based commercial providers were already providing services to patients and practices facing recruitment pressures before the pandemic, there is little evidence of how this offshoring of clinical work affects safety or continuity of care. This trend raises questions about workforce distribution, equity, efficiency, patient experience and the future organization of general practice. The use of teleconsultations is often motivated by recruitment problems, which are mainly concentrated in areas of high medical need. Practices serving socio-economically disadvantaged populations face higher workloads, lower GP-to-patient numbers and insufficient funding. Consultation rates, multimorbidity, administrative burden and social complexity are also higher in these settings.