Health Secretary – IT innovation can help reduce unnecessary trips to hospital

Health Secretary – IT innovation can help reduce unnecessary trips to hospital

Matt Hancock has spoken about the role technology will play in the future of healthcare in England.

At the event, Health and Social Care Secretary Matt Hancock, said:

This has been a difficult time for us all, but what we have found though is that the power of using the best available technology and developing new technology quickly has proved its worth – saving lives and keeping our health and care service standing at a time when it was under unbelievable strain like never before.

Let’s think of some examples. Perhaps the one that touches the public most of all is that GP surgeries could keep operating remotely, because of the huge strides that have been made in telemedicine and then were made in the pandemic.

Getting iPads into care homes to make sure people could stay in contact with their loved ones, and we built on that digital infrastructure to make sure the testing and then vaccination programmes have been able to operate in a seamless way. And ultimately the data is at the heart of both of those programmes. Testing is merely the discovery of new data.

Commenting on Electronic Eyecare Referral Systems (EeRS), he said that NHSX had started the process of allowing “images to flow from high-street opticians to ophthalmology clinics”, which would “mean quicker and more accurate advice for patients, and they will reduce unnecessary trips to hospital”.

The Health Secretary added: “I want to see much more of this big thinking about how we can use technology to fundamentally transform care.”

Review his speech here