Oral Answers to Questions

Alan Mak Excerpts

Tuesday 24th July 2018 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Alan Mak (Havant) (Con)]

1. What recent progress has been made on providing patients with online access to NHS services.

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Matt Hancock)]

It is a great honour to be here, Mr Speaker.

There is good progress in patients using online services in the NHS—about a quarter of patients are now registered to access general practitioner online services, up from about a fifth a year ago—but there is much more to be done to use technology in the NHS for the benefit of patients and clinicians alike.

[Alan Mak]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his appointment. Healthcare delivered by app is increasingly popular with patients in Havant and across the country. Will my right hon. Friend reconfirm his Department’s commitment to the first ever NHS patient app, and update the House on the timetable for its roll-out?

[Matt Hancock]

The roll-out of technology right across the NHS and, indeed, social care is good for patients and good for clinicians. I have seen countless examples of that in just my first two weeks in this job. I pay tribute to the Centre for Policy Studies report, which was launched by my predecessor and authored by my hon. Friend, which demonstrates how apps can be useful for making healthcare easier to access for patients. Apps are popular with patients, and I cannot wait to drive that forward.