*NEW RESEARCH* The Expanding Influence of Babylon

NHS England has given permission for Babylon’s GP at Hand service to extend outside of London for the first time. It had previously advised against expansion due to concerns about access to local clinical pathways and screening services. NHS Hammersmith and Fulham Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), where GP at Hand is based, and Birmingham and Solihull CCG will now work together to agree when the service will start operating in Birmingham.

Use of Babylon’s GP at Hand app, which provides a symptoms checker, appointment booking and online consultation service, has grown rapidly since its introduction. It has been a controversial success story though, because when patients sign up for the service they deregister from their existing GP practice and the NHS funding for that patient goes with them. This is leading to concerns about a two-tier system developing where the younger and fitter patients are cherry picked from their previous practice.

Babylon has long wanted to expand the GP at Hand service outside of London, but, until now, had been blocked by Hammersmith and Fulham CCG and NHS England. The restrictions on expansion into Birmingham have now been removed and GP at Hand looks set to add patients from the city to its service shortly.

In this report we look at the history of GP at Hand, the impact of its expansion, the company behind the technology and concerns about how that company has been championed by the Government.

PublicSectorViews subscribers can download a copy of the report here.

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Posted by Dale Peters at '07:36' - Tagged: nhs   health   government   AI