digitisation

A radical approach which does not only represent the future but has the positive implications for rural dwellers who have the prospect of more efficient and less travel focused primary care. This story tells us:

People in England will receive more healthcare treatments online, enabling them to check NHS records, receive messages from their GP and attend virtual wards, under government plans to digitise healthcare.

Ministers hope that the expansion of technology will free up hospital beds and clinician time by enabling doctors and nurses to monitor about 500,000 people remotely.

The plan for digital health and social care, published on Wednesday, also sets out how patients will be able to manage hospital appointments, book Covid vaccines and have virtual consultations through the NHS app, which 28 million people now have, by March 2023.

The health secretary, Sajid Javid, said: “We are embarking on a radical programme of modernisation that will make sure the NHS is set up to meet the challenges of 2048 – not 1948, when it was first established.