Integrating digital health in GP surgeries

Matt Hancock, the Secretary of State for the Department of Health and Social Care, has promised a technological transformation of the NHS. The opportunities are enormous – the improved delivery of services, supporting the shift from reactive to proactive care models, freeing up staff time to focus more on patient care. And there is a real need at all levels of healthcare provision, including in healthcare provided in the community. And this includes digital health in GP surgeries.

Implementing evidence based digital solutions is one key way of alleviating the growing pressure at the GP practice level. This is why I was interested in the findings of a GP survey conducted by ComRes on behalf of Doctorlink*. Doctorlink’s focus is not on ‘disrupting’ models of service delivery, but rather designing digital solutions to support the delivery of primary care, including through a triage system.

The Survey – Digital health in GP surgeries

The survey was conduction with over 1,000 GPs in the UK in August 2018. The data were nationally representative by practising region. Highlights from the survey include:

• 60% say the impact of digital services has been exaggerated – rising to 70% among the UK’s longest serving GPs (practicing over 30 years)
• 42% think all practices should use the same digital triaging service, while 34% believe individual practices should be able to pick the service they use
• GPs believe the single most important thing digital services need to do is reduce face-to-face appointments (33% chose this option, the most popular choice)
• But 61% expect the NHS’s digital triage app to increase the number of patients wanting to see a GP in person.

Why is this important?

These figures mark a gap between the government’s current ambition on digital tech in health and social care, and how this ambition is perceived by those delivering services.

But we do have a problem for which there is no simple solution. There is an increasing number of patients, with those patients having increasingly varied and sometimes complex needs, combined with a critical shortfall of GPs. This is leading to an increasing strain on surgeries.

Coupled with this are the results from the latest quarterly British Medical Association’s Workload and Wellbeing Survey (Q2 2018) makes for some stark reading. The survey covers a range of medical professionals including  GPs. Morale is low is with 42% of respondents describing theirs as low or very low.  Fifty-seven percent report a decline in applications from non-UK nationals since the Brexit vote. GPs remain the most likely to report working outside their regular hours ‘very often’.

It’s clear that something has to be done.

The promise of digital health

Digital tech does hold great promise.  For GPs, the real benefits are freeing up time to focus less of process, and more on patients. For patients, the benefits are having accurate online information, support for good self-care and long term care condition management. From Doctorlink’s pilot, there was a 10% reduction in requests for face-to-face appointments, freeing up valuable GP time.

At the heart of this has is the need to ensure solutions are evidence base and developed in partnership with GPs, the wider health and care community, patients and the public.

*Doctorlink is a digital gateway connecting patients with primary care series. They are one of a number of providers working in this area and have a digital triage, advice tool and service finder solution. The aim is to reduce the level of patient demand while improving the care experience for patients. They are currently working in the NHS with Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships (STPs), Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), GPs, and 111 services across England. They are currently contracted across 400 GP practices, representing a catchment of 3.2 million patients.