The NHS work-from-home revolution championed by Wes Streeting will put patients at risk of having serious conditions missed by doctors, patient groups and health leaders have warned. The Telegraph has the story.
Doctors will deliver millions of virtual hospital appointments at their convenience – and from their own homes – as part of plans to tackle the NHS backlog that Streeting set out when he was health secretary.
However, health leaders and patient groups are concerned about patients falling through the cracks and the risk that serious conditions such as cancer could be missed.
They also fear the creation of a ‘two-tier’ health system in which the digitally capable are ‘fast-tracked’ while others who are older or more vulnerable are forced to wait longer for care.
The new “Online NHS Trust” will be officially formed on June 1st and start seeing patients from October 2027, the Telegraph can disclose.
Patients facing some of the longest waits will be the first to test the new service, with the virtual hospital to be piloted on gynaecology, urology, gastroenterology and ophthalmology.
Patients referred to a consultant will have the option to connect remotely to one of the specialists across the country via the NHS app – with more specialities and conditions added over time.
Both the patient and doctor will be in their homes under the plans, which are meant to add flexibility and cut waiting times.
When announcing the plans at the 2025 Labour conference, Streeting described the scheme as a way for patients to “be seen faster and more conveniently from the comfort of their own home, or their desk at work, by someone who will be able to get a sense of their condition, give them a course of action”.
The former health secretary, who resigned from Sir Keir Starmer’s Cabinet last week to prepare a run for the Labour leadership, is expected to lean heavily on his record overseeing the health service when making his case to MPs and party members.
But concerns gathered by Healthwatch, an official health service body that represents patients, have warned that serious conditions such as cancer could be missed in video calls.
Patient representatives from 153 local Healthwatch organisations around the country, which were the only groups formally consulted on the plans, raised fears that conditions could be overlooked.
Worth reading in full.
Discussion
Comments
This week across the site:
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to the Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
How a patient smells tells you a lot apparently, better start eating right as the doctors have all left the building.
Explain to me how a gynaecological examination can be completed on zoom?
14 ministers of health since 2020. Not one with a background in science or medicine. In a word, a mess.
I think Streeting has blown it as it seems he will not win a vote off with Burnham, and should as is highly likely, Burnham does not win the byelection, Streeting would lose to Starmer assuming that he does actually launch a challenge.
NHS – what an absolute shitshow.
What’s next? DIY cataract surgery? How to remove your own appendix?
Surely a good way to cut the waiting time for a G.P. appointment or to be seen in A&E would be to charge people if it turns out the “problem” was trivial and didn’t need to be seen by a doctor. I’m sure hundreds of thousands or even millions of hours of doctors time are wasted every year by people who should be told to man up and deal with it. Last year one of my neighbours knocked on my door to ask if I had any superglue because he’d cut his finger down to the bone while chopping veg. This is the sort of approach far more people need to take.
Another of Streeting’s bright ideas was to cut waiting lists by removing names of patients who had died while waiting. This was one of his achievements that he publicised last week.
Remote gynaecology? Do patients need an endoscope? Urology? Will we have to hold a glass up to the camera and smell it for Doc?
A.I. shall provide
I believe, I do
I believe it’s true
I believe exactly what they tell me to
Remote gynaecology? “If you could just point your fanny at the camera I’ll take a look”.
Isn’t that called ‘only fans’?
The last time I said it was a couple of minutes before becoming single.
The last time I felt the need to visit my GP was for a strange lump that had appeared on my chest. And this is what he said:
Sir, I’ve never seen anything like this before, so I’m not sure what it is. But what I can tell you is that I’m trained to spot anything potentially life threatening, and that lump isn’t. Is that OK? If it gets any bigger please come back.
I replied that I completely agreed with his expert diagnosis, but probably wouldn’t be coming back
This is the future, and it sucks.
How long before it’s a AI generated doctor on the other end?
For years already, GPs have been merely elaborate Googlers and salesmen for Big Pharma.
They don’t think. Much like AI. I think they can’t think.
The last few times I visited a GP they wouldn’t even touch me, despite it being very arguably necessary to do so.
Now you can’t even get an appointment – neither in person, nor on the phone. Crazy.
We could do no worse – at least it would have intelligence.
As long as they speak english…
They should all go home … and stay there. I doubt we’d notice.
Then we can go back to pre-NHS days of hospitals run in the private, community, and voluntary (for the ubiquitous “poor”) sectors for the benefit of people’s health not to meet Socialist ideology and serve the needs of cat-fighting politicians at election times.
The “free” NHS costs every person £3 500 a year.
It cost me an awful lot more than that. Past tense, because I emigrated over two years ago and am now tax resident in France.
In France, more or less, one gets what one pays for. And the way the whole thing is organised ensures it’s a lot more difficult to abuse the system and take it all for granted.
I lived in France for twenty years until recently and I concur. Over 50% of health providers are private (gasp!) and get paid per patient/per treatment rather than a per capita flat fee. The national insurance scheme only part reimburses/covers cost. It varies but only 70% of GP visit, 80% hospital in-patient treatments and hospitals charge an additional 18€ daily fee not reimbursed. Most people have private (gasp!) top-up insurance to cover what the State doesn’t.
People are not trapped in catchment areas or on GP lists and are free to “shop around” so that means competition, and providers know this and service matters, they get no income for keeping people on waiting lists.
In fact I have over 25 years experience in the healthcare supply-side industry, and most European Countries have a similar model.
It’s odd – UK politicians are so desperate that we are “Europeans” but refuse to adopt sucessful health care models or road pricing models of other European Countries
Italy has a mixed system and here is Tuscany I must say I have always received good service.
So a big thumbs up from me.
I have lived in France for nearly 30 years and strongly agree. Although I rarely use the health system (my GP, herself an emigrant from the NHS, recently asked me why I hadn’t consulted her for 5 years), my wife has received excellent treatment for serious cardiac and other problems. The German system was equally good in my experience.
I read an opinion piece once by a GP who explained that you can often learn more about a patient’s health from how thery enter and leave the consulting room than from what they say. Vital clues are going to be missed in virtual consultations.