DrDoctor responds to NHSX mission

We were excited to read Matthew Gould’s blog this week on what the NHSX have been up to and greatly respect the breadth of responsibility the team have taken on. As Matthew encouraged everyone to join the conversation we thought we’d take him up on his offer and outline our commitment to supporting the NHSX mission. 

In line with the Health Secretary’s Tech Vision and the NHS Long Term Plan, NHSX announced their five missions that are focused around patient and staff-related improvement.

Here at DrDoctor, we were thrilled to see how well these missions fit in with our own priorities. In fact, the very reason we exist is to help make the lives of patients and the NHS workforce easier.

Our mission is to deliver value-based healthcare and patient systems; with patients at the centre of their own care. 

The key objectives for NHSX are listed as:  

1. Reduce the burden on our workforce, so they can focus on delivering care 
2. Give people the tools to access information and services directly, so they can best take charge of their own health and care; 
3. Ensure information about people’s health and care can be safely accessed, wherever it is needed; 
4. Aid the improvement of safety across health and care systems; and 
5. Improve health and care productivity with digital technology.

Reducing burden 

Reducing the burden on NHS workforce is fundamental to ensuring the NHS remains sustainable when faced with the increasing needs of our growing and aging population.

We have always understood that first and foremost you have to reduce the burden on staff so that they can focus on the patients. 

Our solution automates the manual, repetitive tasks undertaken by staff to let healthcare professionals focus on helping those patients who really need it. This makes sure that doctors see only patients who need to be seen, and administrators can focus their time on different, more creative tasks.

Like helping 90-year-old Mike book a taxi home from his appointment.   

Taking charge 

The DrDoctor patient engagement platform puts all the tools that patients need to access their care right in front of them, on their phone. 

It is key that patients are empowered and have access to their relevant information in order that they can become drivers of their own care. Reducing the burden on booking teams by automating appointment management allows patients to take charge. 

Keeping information accessible and safe 

We feel there are two sides to aiding the accessibility of patient data; clinician to clinician interoperability and private accessibility of data. The sharing of data between primary and secondary care is a real achievement for healthtech and although this doesn’t belong in our realm, we support other tech that does. 

Our focus is on enabling improved access to data by every patient at any time. We’ve developed our product around the patient journey and understand the value in feeling in control of your own information. If you’re unwell and wake up in the middle of the night worried about your healthcare journey, our platform gives you the ability to log in safely using your computer or mobile phone and access all the relevant information you may be thinking about. 

The improvement of safety across health and care systems is another focus point for us and invaluable for the improvement of the NHS. 

In the NHS, it's fairly common for patients to be on a waiting list for a long time. In extreme cases, this can lead to serious consequences including loss of eyesight, severe distress or even death. This is real and an increasing challenge. Every year, people go blind because they wait for too long for ophthalmology services.

Our solution can help reduce waiting list size which means people can be seen sooner. We’re also starting to explore clinical risk models where we begin to identify clinically urgent patients and bring them forward on their pathway. 

In 2020, this world now revolves around data, and what is more important or more private than information concerning your health. We’re committed to keeping that data safe so hospitals and patients can focus on getting people better. 

Improving productivity 

Improving NHS productivity is key to building sustainable and scalable healthcare systems and we’re delighted that we share that view with the NHSX team. 

Trusts using DrDoctor are able to keep their clinics full and ensure clinicians are seeing the right patients at the right time. They are also minimising administrative overhead and reducing financial waste in paper and postal services.  

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We offer our continued support to NHSX and look forward to reading more of their vision in the Tech Plan mentioned by Matthew Gould in his blog.  

We believe that the NHSX needs an ecosystem of start-ups, SMEs and large providers who are working together to deliver excellent patient care. We focus on patient experience and we welcome other suppliers who are focusing on the many other areas of Healthtech that need focus, all powered and enabled by open standards and interoperability.