NHS offers £45 million for GPs to implement electronic consultations
GP practices will be incentivised to offer ‘online consultations’ to patients through a £45million funding pot as part of a new injection of IT funding announced in NHS England’s General Practice Forward View.
The measures to cut GP workload, increase practice efficiency and help patients self-care will also see CCGs’ budgets for general practice technology investment increased by more than 18%.
Health secretary Jeremy Hunt has previously championed the use of e-consulting technology to improve access, and the GP Forward View states: ‘From 2017/18 NHS England will launch a new programme to offer every practice in the country over the coming years support to adopt online consultation systems. Depending on uptake, there will be up to £45 million extra investment to support this.’
NHS England has also introduced new ‘core requirements’ for IT setting out what services practices should expect to have funded by their CCG through the increased budget.
By the end of 2016/17 practices should be able to expect that they will be able message individual patients directly, by SMS or over the internet. This comes after funding for the national NHSmail system was scrapped last year leaving practices at the whim of local CCGs priorities.
