Babylon founder: ‘GP at Hand meets the needs of the NHS’
The founder of Babylon has said the success of the company’s GP at Hand service is due to it being designed to “meet the needs of the NHS”.
Ali Parsa sat down with Digital Health News at the Amazon Web Services (AWS) summit in London to talk about innovation within the NHS, and his reaction to the hype surrounding the roll-out of GP at Hand.
Launched in November 2017, the service allows patients to book appointments and talk to their doctor through their smartphones for free on the NHS.
Since it was launched, more than 26,500 people have signed up to GP at Hand, with Parsa citing the fact that the app has been built for purpose being central to its popularity.
“Our GP at hand service has been designed from bottom up to meet the needs of the NHS,” said Parsa.
“As a result, it has been amongst the fastest-growing and most popular service roll-outs in the history of the NHS with four-in-five users give it 5-star rating.
“I love the fact that the NHS is among the first worldwide to deliver this digital-first service to the people of London, and hopefully soon to the rest of the country.”
Previously, Digital Health News has reported that the number of patient registrations for GP at Hand has averaged around 4,000 per month.
When asked about whether he was surprised about the number, Parsa said he was in fact was “disappointed” with GP at Hand’s spread in the UK and hoped more people would sign up.
On the subject of innovation within the NHS, Parsa said that while there was some “resistance”, there were those working hard eternally to help spread change and push through new technologies.
Parsa added that innovators should not be “afraid to disrupt” the health technology market.
He added: “NHS is showing great vision for exploring where and how new care models and new technologies can be integrated into its services.
“The CQC also recently stated its intent to encourage innovation that will improve access to and quality of care.”
You can hear more from Parsa at Digital Health’s Summer Schools on 19-20 July in Birmingham.
8 Comments
I went to NHS Direct online and got bounced to these jokers without knowing that I became deregistered from my local GP. The process is deliberately opaque. I had a consultation with a doctor online and by a smartphone that took several goes to make it work resulting in the need to see an actual doctor. Hours went by and no appointment until finally I was offered one on the other side of London which would take me hours to reach so much so that I could not get there in time. I went to the local A&E in the end. Had to go on IV antibiotics and could have been treated many hours earlier. Went back to my own GP and months later, after excellent treatment there, find that I have again been deregistered?
My doctor’s office has just told me that they had to take me off their system because the private contractor only just got around to moving my notes months after I was tricked into moving my practice. The system is set up so that surgeries have to comply with the paperwork so my, and hundreds of thousands of patient notes, are chasing patients around the country. Babylon’s patient kidnapping system is only adding to the misery.
I’m a GP partner, I’m glad that more alternative employers are coming out, instead of the monopoly that is the NHS. I’m so sick of year on year increased work load and an unlimited number of patient contacts every day.
I am seriously thinking of dumping my practice and going freelance / private or going to another country at this point.
As I understand it, this is a mechanism to cream off low-demand, low-risk, low-cost patients from other practices. So it will give the GP at Hand practice a much bigger profit margin in the short term.
Not so good if and when the patients actually get ill, or eventually get old and must demand more from the GP. By then I expect the GP at Hand crown will have taken the money and run.
Disruptive innovation maybe. A good money spinner for Parsa & co almost certainly. But can someone explain how this is meeting the needs of the NHS?
Silly: I mean crowd not crown om the 3rd parag
“As you understand it” and “the way things really are” are two very different things.
As I understand it the moon is made of cheese and the tides are a scam by atlantis to destabilise our housing market.
lol. You should leave the conversation to the grown-ups and stick to something safer – like bothering billy goats.
Actual health benefit = ?
May be a cheaper way of achieving provider-induced demand than walk-in centres, but still needs proper evaluation by an independent academic body.
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