British Medical Journal | 2019
NHS long term plan: all patients to have access to online GP consultations by 2023-24
Abstract
On Monday NHS England published its long term plan for the NHS.1 Here we summarise how it intends to prioritise services over the next 10 years in specific areas.\n\nBy 2023-24 every patient in England will be able to access “digital first” NHS primary care consultations from either their own GP or a digital GP provider. Outpatient services will be redesigned to enable more cases to be handled remotely and electronically, avoiding up to a third of face-to-face outpatient visits (up to 30 million appointments a year). All acute, community, and mental health providers will be “fully digitised” across all locations and departments by 2024. In 2019-20 100\u2009000 women will be able to access their maternity record digitally, with coverage extended to the whole country by 2023-24. Decision support and artificial intelligence will help eliminate variation across the country and help patients to managing their conditions themselves.\n\nMental …