Hancock: NHS needs to ‘double down’ on tech advances after Covid-19
- 30 July 2020
The NHS needs to ādouble downā on the technological advances made during Covid-19 to ensure they continue after the pandemic, health secretary Matt Hancock has said.
Speaking about the future of healthcare at a Royal College of Physicians event, Hancock told the audience better technology was needed for better healthcare.
āWe want to double down on the huge advances weāve made in technology within the NHS and social care, because itās not really about technology, itās about people,ā he said.
The health secretary also said in his speech that digital services should be used to keep patients out of hospital when appointments arenāt essential, free up clinicians time, and better connect people with their care.
Referencing difficulties in developing new technology, Hancock added they donāt make it āany less valuableā.
āTo promote collaboration and change we need more transparency, better use of data, more interoperability and the enthusiastic adoption of technological innovation that can improve care,ā he said.
āThis crisis has shown that patients and clinicians alike, not just the young, want to use technology.
āWhen it comes to their healthcare, whether theyāre digital natives or digital converts, they [patients] donāt want to sit around in a waiting room if that service can come to them at home.ā
According to Hancock, in the future, all GP appointments should be done through teleconsultations unless thereās a ācompelling reason not toā to make care easier to manage and allow the NHS to provide a āmuch betterā service. This was echoed earlier in the year by the Digital Healthcare Council, which said telephone and text consultations have been favoured by patients during the pandemic.
Seven key lessons learned during the pandemic, were also outlined by the health secretary,Ā which he described as like āsheet lighting on a dark nightā shining a light on the NHS and where improvement was needed.
Aside from better technology, Hancock outlined a need for better collaboration and integration across healthcare borders; better accountability; and a reduction in ābureaucratic barnaclesā to allow for faster adoption across the NHS.
He said the Covid-19 crisis had provided āstark clarityā on where the NHS needs to evolve and forced it to improvise new ways of doing things that āwill become permanent because they are a better way of doing thingsā.
āWeāve got to bottle the bestā, Hancock said.
āInnovation is not just about coming up with the idea, itās about having the backing and the permission to make the change.ā
6 Comments
Matt Hancock seems all about the focus and drive to new technology but fails to understand what this actually means . We have been lobbying his area for some time to get some funding to aid AI enabled early cancer diagnosis which will reduce the long delays by 70%.
Come on letās get the funding to companies who already have a solution instead of re inventing the wheel ?
……
Wanted to exactly understand the American phrase “double-down” and got an interesting result from Dictonary.com.
Outside of gambling, double down is often used by politicians, business leaders, and media outlets to describe approaching some problem with more focus, energy, and resources, especially when that tactic is seen as ill-advised.
I particulary found the last that nine words to be interesting, especially related to many decisions made since lock down restrictions were being lifted.
He knows a bit about technology, but nothing about health care.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
“This was echoed earlier in the year by the Digital Healthcare Council, which said telephone and text consultations have been favoured by patients during the pandemic.”
Of course telephone and text consultations have been favoured by patients during the pandemic. Indeed no consultations have been favoured by patients during the pandemic. In case Mr Hancock has not thought of this, there was a very good reason for this preference during the pandemic – namely the pandemic.
Those committed to economic growth in the digital technology sector, at the expense of healthcare, will always hear what they want to hear, see what they want to see and will forever be totally blind to the systematic degradation of healthcare to which Mr Hancock and his colleagues are unflinchingly committed.
How does doubling down differ from doubling up?
And redoubling.
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