NHS: Babylon’s GP at Hand App

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Monday 21st October 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Thornton]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what impact assessment has been carried out of the effect that Babylon’s GP at hand app (1) is having and (2) may have on (a) GP patient waiting lists, and (b) the funding of primary healthcare.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I declare my interests as set out in the register.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

NHS England and partners commissioned an evaluation report of Babylon GP at hand. This was published in May 2019 and concluded that, overall, users are satisfied with the service, in particular its convenience. The GP at hand work- force demonstrated high satisfaction with the service, particularly with the flexible work arrangements. However, satisfaction was lower for waiting times for face-to-face appointments. Practice funding is being revised to improve fairness following the emergence of digital- first providers.

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[Baroness Thornton]

I am not sure how many noble Lords realise what GP at hand is. It is a virtual GP app that uses artificial intelligence to identify health problems and has a partnership with the NHS in London and Birmingham, where patients can sign up for the digital-first GP at hand service and receive video consultations. I am absolutely in favour of the use of new technology in primary healthcare—this is not a Luddite Question—but clinical commissioning groups in London have, on the instructions of NHS England, had to reserve large sums of money, of up to £1 million, in their 2019-20 budgets for the next year to meet the costs of Babylon GP at hand. They have not commissioned this work; it is not included in the safeguarding or quality oversight of them; and it is paid for without basic information about how many or which patients are leaving local GP lists or the impact that this might have. Does the Minister think that this is a satisfactory situation, in terms of the control and accountability of local budgets? Would the money, which I understand stands in London at about a £21 million deficit, not be better spent providing technology and IT infrastructure for the use of our GPs in their surgeries?

[Lord Bethell]

The noble Baroness raises an important question. The Government are aware of the issues faced by out-of-area commissioning, and particularly of the concerns of Hammersmith and Fulham Council. We are looking at its concerns about its budget provisioning. We do not recognise all the numbers, but we are trying to understand them better. I reassure her, however, that we are putting in measures to ameliorate the situation. We are looking at ways to disaggregate a patient list if there are large numbers of digital-first patients; we are making more timely adjustments to CCG budgets, moving to quarterly rather than annual assessments; and we are looking at how to apply technology to under-doctored areas.