GP time equivalent to more than 400,000 hours was saved through the use of the NHS App last year, NHS England has claimed.
NHSE chief executive Amanda Pritchard explained that the commissioner invested in ‘new tech and digital capabilities’ in ‘recent years’ – including the NHS App – with a view to improve productivity in general practice, in a letter to the parliamentary health and social care committee.
The letter followed a session earlier this year where Ms Pritchard was grilled by MPs on the committee about NHS England’s response to a report from the Public Accounts Committee which concluded there had been a lack of ‘fresh thinking’ and ‘decisive action’ to meet policy ambitions to shift care away from hospital to the community.
After the session, committee chair Layla Moran said they had been left ‘disappointed and frustrated’, and the committee requested further information from the commissioner, specifically on productivity and technology.
In her letter, Ms Pritchard explained that following the ‘very significant drop’ in productivity during the Covid pandemic, there has been ‘positive acute productivity growth’ in each year since 2020/21 – averaging above 2% for the last three years.
The 2024 Spring Budget had set NHS England a challenge of delivering average productivity growth of 1.9% per year, and Ms Pritchard said that 0.7% of that would come from ‘enabling technology and digital transformation’.
Ms Pritchard said: ‘The investment in the NHS App and other patient-facing services has already freed up 416,000 hours of GP time, and 99,000 hours of nursing time, in addition to 3.2 million hours of administrative time, through enabling patients to directly manage their secondary referrals and appointments.’
According to the letter, this was the result of 2.5 million test result-related GP appointments ‘avoided’, ‘equal to 416,000 hours saved or £141m in cost of time saved’.
NHS England confirmed to Pulse that the figures refer to nine months from April to December 2024.
Ms Pritchard added that other priorities to improve productivity included asking every GP practice ‘to enable all core NHS App capabilities’, including health record access, online consultations, appointment management, prescription management, online registration, and patient messaging.
Doctors’ Association GP spokesperson Dr Steve Taylor told Pulse that the figures were a ‘huge overstatement’ of the impact of the NHS App on GP time.
He said: ‘NHS England stated to the health and social care committee that 416,000 hours of GP time had been saved by use of the NHS App. They had based this on 2.5 million test results being visible and therefore patients not needing a GP appointment.
‘This is a huge overstatement of the likely impact of the app. Although the app is undoubtedly good for patients, the fact that results can be easily seen also means an increase in some questions to GPs, particularly uncertainty what a test was, borderline results and a reduction in others where tests are normal.
‘In fact GPs are now getting questions about hospital tests, that they have not ordered, which would normally only be discussed at a hospital follow-up appointment.
‘It is likely the app is not saving appointments and certainly not in the numbers extrapolated by NHS England.’
It comes after NHS England launched efforts to encourage the use of the app, including a campaign last year focusing on its functionalities such as GP record access and test results, repeat prescriptions and viewing appointments already booked. Library staff across England were also involved to help people access it and increase the use of the app.
Last year, NHS England claimed that up to 20% of calls to GP practices ‘could be resolved’ through NHS App features for referrals.
And the commissioner also said that sending messages to patients via the NHS app rather than over text or letter has saved the NHS £1.1m.
get ready for the smoke and mirrors from Wes
on the plus side see this from TBI Preparing the NHS for the AI Era: Why Smarter Triage and Navigation Mean Better Health Care
https://institute.global/insights/public-services/preparing-the-nhs-for-the-ai-era-why-smarter-triage-and-navigation-mean-better-health-care?
Other health systems are streets ahead in terms of intelligent navigation: the use of artificial intelligence to support patients with decision-making around how to manage their health and where to go when they are unwell. Companies such as Ada, Abi Health, Healthily, Rapid Health, Infermedica, Klinik, Mediktor and Visiba are improving outcomes for patients by reducing unnecessary and inefficient care pathways across the world, and in various parts of the NHS.
Given the current state of affairs, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change proposes that the government should commit to the development of an AI Navigation Assistant for every citizen. This would ensure a high-quality, integrated and consistent approach to triage and navigation across the whole of the UK.
Not only would an AI Navigation Assistant support people in accessing existing health services, but it would also put the infrastructure in place for them to navigate to future ones. A proliferation of consumer-facing apps, digital therapeutics and online services are emerging to help people manage their own health, such as Sleepio for insomnia, Flok for physiotherapy and DERM for skin diagnoses. It is perfectly possible to see how – for simple pathways at least – an AI Navigation Assistant could be the first step on an entirely digital pathway of care, with citizens able to self-diagnose, self-refer, self-treat and self-discharge without ever coming into contact with a clinician.
If the UK gets this right, the benefits to patients and the service itself could be huge. TBI analysis shows that implementing AI across navigation services could free up 29 million GP appointments each year. It could also lead to productivity gains worth £340 million a year for non-clinical workers via GP and NHS 111 services; this is about one-fifth of the cost of NHS 111.
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This has saved admin time not clinical time. There has been an increase in requests for results of hospital requested tests. Primary care is still at breaking point due to chronic under investment and lack of GPs.
Could be an excuse to divert more investment from GPs to devise more apps and gadgetry; and the money goes to apps investors and gadgetry and high tech investors, companies who never fail to make huge profits ( that aren’t sufficiently taxed ).
Are GPs not busier than ever and the patients still striving for FTF appointments with a real GP sooner than the often complained 2 to 3 weeks wait? Where has all the country’s money disappeared? Will R Reeves MP have a good Spring Statement ( Budget ) tomorrow? Or will the rates of tax on the huge and ( ridiculous ) profits of banks, utilities and many other companies, app and tech companies and billionaires remain unchanged? (and not high enough). Even a one-off extra high profits tax could raise many billions Britain deserves and more real funding for GPs. Health Security does not mean apps and more apps and so GPs have more hours to spare on some fictitious golf course. Unbelievable spin.
👍SM. This is the worst case of Doublespeak I’ve come across in a while….absolute BS. No doubt Pritchard will land on her feet in the private sector, if not further promoted by the new nasty party, Labour.
It may have solved some admin time but has created new issues for GP’s. Patients are seeing some of their hospital results on NHS app and coming to discuss it with GP ( as the next consultant appointment is 1-2 years awa,. who does not have the result and/or sometimes the expertise to interpret it.
We also have patients with health anxiety book appointments to discuss likely non pathological variations in test results like basophil count and red cell distribution.
Given everything else is available at click of button, this is likely the way forward, however in private sector more use leads to more cost for the customer, which is the deterrent against overuse, but not the case with GP appointments.
Hence this has to be managed carefully in healthcare as GP’s seem to bear the brunt of the workload while secondary care has worsened productivity in-spite of increased funding.
These have to be audited carefully for time saved versus time wasted due to the changes.
22.6 seconds saved per patient per year…we are saved!!!
This is a bit like increased turnover not increased profit. So they have recorded 400000 hours of NHS App use turnover but not sure have extrapolated reliably to GP activity. Even the use for repeat prescriptions has altered for me the time checking and signing off prescriptions. EPS is probably faster and greener than signing bits of paper with a pen. The amount of workload by patients with results outside the norm but of zero clinical significance is significant. How much of the AI defaults back to see your GP because AI is binary and medicine isn’t. The inefficiency of hospitals is the scary bit with patients having multiple letters and appt changes often at short notice. I had a patient brought in about his appt that they then said he had DNA’d. None of the 5 letters had the appt date and time of the appt he was accused of missing.