Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has detailed plans to expand the current NHS 111 non-emergency phone line service. The new digital service will allow patients to enter their symptoms online and receive personalised advice or a call back from a health professional.
The NHS.uk website will be relaunched with patients being able to book appointments, access medical records and order prescriptions online. There will also be ‘Ofsted style’ data available for patients to compare how well their local health services are performing in areas of dementia, diabetes and learning disability services.
Mr Hunt said: “We live in the age of the smartphone, and we want the NHS to reflect that.
“This is a way of supplementing patients seeing their doctor in a more conventional, face-to-face setting, and crucially it will give people more choice and the opportunity to access healthcare in a way that works for them.”
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