NHS England Research Report: Video Consultations in Secondary Care

The report reviews 3 million NHS England secondary care video consultations over a year in one of the fastest roll-outs of a single technology in the NHS’s history. 

The report highlights the benefits of video consultations to patients – saving over the year a total of 4.64 million hours (530 years) inpatient travel and in-hospital waiting times and £40m in travel costs and parking charges. As a result, 3 million lost work hours were avoided saving the overall economy £108m in lost productivity. The report estimates fewer journeys to the hospital resulted in 14,200 tonnes of avoided greenhouse gas emissions, and 11 million fewer “single-use” PPE items, such as face masks, were consumed, saving the NHS over £1.1 million. The analysis also found that 1,730 hospital-acquired infections were avoided (not including COVID-19 infections) due to fewer visits to hospital sites. 
 
Over 76% of clinicians were “positive” or “very positive” about video consultations with patients, 77% finding the national video platform “easy to use”. Research conducted earlier this year by Oxford University for NHS Scotland has also shown very high patient satisfaction rates with NHS video consultations.

Read the report: ​https://www.edgehealth.co.uk/outpatient-video