Doctors should give patients options including traveling further for healthcare or going to private alternatives as Rishi Sunak tries to fulfill his promise to cut waiting times in NHS.
GPs will be forced to offer up to five healthcare providers when clinically appropriate, allowing patients to choose their preference using the NHS app or website.
The options are filtered by distance, waiting time and quality of care, expanding the app downloaded by millions during the coronavirus pandemic.
Patients have the right to choose where they go, but it is expected that doctors will have to provide alternatives, as outlined in a letter sent to the NHS on Thursday, increasing use.
Only one in 10 patients currently exercise this right but research shows that the choice could cut three-month waiting times, according to the Department of Health and Social Care.
Patients do not have to pay, with the NHS covering any private healthcare provider of choice. Low-income patients may receive assistance with travel costs under the current scheme.
Sunak, who has made cutting waiting lists one of his five priorities, has previously backed the private sector to play a bigger role in the NHS.
Announcing the new policy, he said that “empowering” patients with a “real choice” of where they receive treatment will help cut waiting lists.
“Our aim is to create an NHS built around patients, where everyone has more control over the care they receive, no matter where they live or what their health needs are,” said he.
Last month the prime minister’s battle to reduce waiting lists was hit by official estimates suggesting 7.2 million people were waiting to start routine hospital treatment – the highest total since records began last year. 2007.
Royal College of GPs chair, Prof Kamila Hawthorne, said making better use of technology and giving patients more choice were moves “worth exploring”.
But he added: “This concept of giving patients a choice of where they can access hospital care is not new.
“Similar initiatives have been tried, with mixed success, so it is important that the lessons learned from this to ensure that the new iterations are intuitive for patients and do not increase the and in the work of general practice, at a time when we need to cut bureaucratic burdens.
“We also need to be realistic with our patients, given current NHS backlogs, of what is possible – particularly in terms of waiting times for treatment – so that this new system does not make mistakes expectations.”
The health secretary, Steve Barclay, said the new policies would help “wipe months” off waiting times.
But his Labor shadow, Wes Streeting, said it was “ridiculous” that the government’s “big idea to get rid of waiting lists is to give patients an option they already have”. .
