Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
According to reports NHS Direct has said that it intends to play a leading role in supporting the health service to ‘exploit the full potential’ of multi-channel, remotely delivered clinical care.
In its business plan for 2011-16 the organisation outlines plans to make radical changes to its core business to help develop virtual services. This will include a shift away from the 0845 health advice and information line and associated web services, which it operates under a single contract on behalf of the whole NHS. Instead, it will compete with other organisations to provide new, nationally specified but locally commissioned NHS 111 urgent care services.
The Business plan document says: “Around this we intend to offer a range of value added service enhancements and additional remote and virtual offerings to meet local commissioner needs, building on our unparalleled experience of digital and remote healthcare”
“They protect high cost face-to-face services for the people and situations that need them, whilst for the growing numbers of people who already turn first to the internet for everyday needs, they provide a more convenient and responsive service at lower cost.”
The document acknowledges the risks involved from converting from a monopoly provider of the 0845 service, which generates more than 80% of its total income, to being one of a number of providers competing to deliver the new NHS 111 service.
The document also details NHS Direct’s 2011-12 cost improvement programme, through which the service hopes to make savings of £14.6m. It says that this money will be released back into the wider NHS for the provision of frontline services.
