Tinder for the NHS! Health chiefs will match patients with hospitals with shorter waiting times further from home to clear Covid-related backlogs

The NHS will help match patients with hospitals with shorter waiting times further from home to reduce waiting lists and speed up access to care.

Patients are given a profile detailing their symptoms or treatment needs and how far they are willing to travel for a diagnosis or procedure.

These can then be assessed by managers and medical staff at 650 private and NHS providers across the country, who can take over their care if they have capacity to spare.

Patients will be given the option of traveling to the alternative hospital for their appointment, with the NHS covering the cost if it is provided by a private company.

Some consultations can even be conducted remotely by doctors hundreds of miles away from the patient.

More than 7.47 million patients in England – equivalent to one in eight people – were waiting for routine surgery at the end of May – an increase of 56,700 in just one month

Waiting lists stand at a record 7.5 million, with more than 835,000 appointments and surgeries canceled due to strikes by doctors, nurses and physiotherapists, among others.

The online matching platform was initially introduced for patients requiring hospitalization, but will be expanded to include cancer, diagnostics and outpatient appointments.

Since its launch in January, more than 1,700 support offers have been made and thousands of patients will benefit as the platform grows.

The system is mainly used for patients who have waited the longest, with health chiefs calling it a ‘key tool’ as part of the NHS’s ongoing ambitions to clear the covid backlogs built up during the pandemic.

But it is not required that patients have waited a certain amount of time before being added to the site.

Patient information is included to help organizations decide whether to pick up the case, including how far the patient is willing to travel, the severity of the illness, their BMI and how long they have waited for care.

If more than one provider offers treatment, the options are presented to the patient, who can then choose based on factors such as how far they would have to travel.

Gynecology, colorectal and trauma, and orthopedics are the top three specialties that have benefited from this digital mutual aid so far, but hundreds of different treatments or appointments can be uploaded.

NHS England chief executive Amanda Pritchard said: ‘Despite significant pressure on services, NHS staff have already made incredible progress on our elective recovery plan, and this smart new tool will help us reduce long patient waiting times. continue to decrease.

‘It once again shows the benefits of having a national health service – NHS staff can now work even more closely with other hospitals across the country to identify capacity and easily match patients with available treatment and appointment slots.

“Technology is already changing the way we work in the NHS and we will continue to embrace the latest innovations, like this one, to provide the best possible care for patients.”

Health Secretary Steve Barclay said: ‘We are already giving patients more choice about where they are treated and this will go even further by tailoring services to patients based on their clinical needs and personal preferences.

“This will help us do thousands of additional diagnostic checks for serious conditions and get people treated sooner – often without needing to go to hospital.

“We are using all the tools at our disposal to reduce waiting lists – one of the government’s top five priorities – while this platform will also help us drive better collaboration between the NHS and the independent sector to help patients get to hospital faster. to deal with.’

A survey conducted last year by the Patient Association and the Independent Healthcare Providers Network, which represents independent healthcare providers, found that nearly three-quarters of patients (73 percent) said they would be happy to travel more than 30 minutes to get treatment faster.

In May, fewer than six in ten cancer patients (58.7 percent) were seen within two months of an urgent GP referral for their first treatment. According to the NHS target, the figure should be 85 per cent

More than 700,000 NHS appointments have been canceled since the strikes began seven months ago. More than 100,000 were canceled in the last five-day strike by junior doctors

Rachel Power, Managing Director of the Patient Association: “We welcome the expansion of the hospital matching platform and believe it will make it even easier for patients and the healthcare professional to jointly decide where to get treatment or testing.

‘Patient’s choice has been a right for over a decade, but not all patients know they have the right, and it is not always offered to them.

‘Hopefully making it easy for health professionals to easily see where patients can be treated will increase the number of patients who can use mutual aid within the NHS.

“We are very much in favor of mutual aid. We have been working with the Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) program on a mutual aid program in the East of England that gave patients the option of having surgery in a hospital other than their local hospital.

“We know that patients like to have surgery earlier and together with them and GIRFT we have created information for other patients about the benefits of elective surgical hubs.”

David Furness, director of policy and delivery at the IHPN, said: ‘The hospital matching platform is a great example of how the NHS and the independent sector can work together effectively for the benefit of patients to reduce waiting times and help them see more. fast.’

Rory Deighton, director of the NHS Confederation’s Acute Network, said: ‘This is a sensible, innovative initiative that has the potential to deliver longer-term benefits for the NHS and benefit patients, potentially speeding up care for those who are prepared to and be able to travel.

‘However, some patients cannot travel that far and will prefer to wait a little longer to get to their local hospital.

“But in the current environment, it’s important that we explore every opportunity we can, and this will help better match demand with very limited capacity, prioritizing those patients who have waited the longest.”