Parish councillor Graham Long was speaking after a review of digital services in the NHS in England called for GPs to actively encourage patients to go online to book appointments and order repeat prescriptions.

It was drawn up by Internet entrepreneur Baroness Martha Lane Fox, who was asked by Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt to look at how take-up of Internet services could be made widely available. She recommended ensuring every NHS building provide free wi-fi, and that every GP practice should get 10 per cent of patients to go digital by 2017.

Mr Long, who is campaigning for fast broadband in rural areas of Somerset and Devon, said booking appointments and renewing prescriptions online could be beneficial for many people in rural areas, particularly those with poor public transport.

He said: “I live in the Blackdown Hills, and we had a bus service to the next village where there is a GP. That has been cut from five days a week to two. Ordering repeat prescriptions online would save an awful lot of travelling for people without their own transport. It has even been suggested that consultations could eventually be done online using Skype. But many people here would not be able to take advantage of this because of the slow speed connections.”

He added: “Fast broadband provides access to the trade routes of the 21st century. If you do not raise the urgency of deploying rural broadband, you will be consigning rural Devon and Somerset to Third World status.

“This should be one of the catalysts for getting fast broadband in rural areas. In the 21st century, it should all be about building fast broadband links. It is more important than improvements to the road network.”

Martyn Rogers, director of Age UK Exeter, said: “There are lots of people ordering prescriptions online now. It’s convenient because they can do it from home and it saves time and money at surgeries.

“But a government report last year on digital inclusion showed that 11 million people in this country don’t have sufficient digital capacity to do things like book appointments on line, and half of those were aged over 65.

“A lot of older people are not online. But I would encourage as many people as possible who want to do this to try it; it would seem to be cost-effective. Provided GPs are geared up, that’s great. But if it started to be mandatory, it would disenfranchise a large number of people.”

On Thursday (DEC 10) Mr Long addressed a full meeting of Devon County Council and raised the issue of the failure to provide fast broadband to many parts of the region.

He said: “Devon and Somerset’s superfast rural broadband programme, the largest in England, is now a basket case with district councils in Devon issuing press releases claiming they will run their own programme. Rural council taxpayers expect you to work with the districts to provide the publicly-funded infrastructure that cities and other rural counties now take for granted. This is not happening here and rural economies face serious decline with businesses moving out to the towns. Fast broadband provides access to the trade routes of the 21st century. If you do not raise the urgency of deploying rural broadband, you will be consigning rural Devon and Somerset to Third World status.”