Our Response to the NHS Online Consultation
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and NHS England are working to establish a new online service: NHS Online. This service will deliver online elective care as part of the NHS.
Under current legislation, local Healthwatch must always be consulted when any new NHS trust is proposed.
Healthwatch Richmond submitted a response to the consultation. You can read both the consultation document and our response below.
Key Findings
Notably, we found that the consultation document that we were asked to respond to did not include the level of detail necessary to understand how the Trust would operate or how it would interact with other NHS Trusts, ICBs, clinicians or with patients. Therefore, we do not believe that there is sufficient information within the document for us to give the matter intelligent consideration as per the Gunning Principles.
In addition, we believe that there are substantial risks to ICBs and providers from NHS Online. The lack of a clinical site, back office functions such as finance and HR suggest that there is a reliance on existing providers to support staff and the Online NHS trust. In effect, providers will cover these costs, and the financial reimbursement for doing so will determine whether it is a benefit or a cost/risk.
Finally, we emphasised the importance of patient choice. It needs to be made clear to patients that being referred to NHS Online is optional and that they have a choice of different services. To do this, patients need to be provided with clear information about how the service will work in practice and how they can access support if things go wrong.
Read Our Full Response
Please note that this response contains intentional repetition. This ensures our key arguments remain cohesive and clear, even if sections of the consultation are reviewed in isolation.
