E-Booking presented as a step towards patient-centred NHS

A new £64.5m national contract for e-booking between GP surgeries and acute hospitals in England was presented by the government as a key step towards achieving the aim of offering patients a choice of hospitals.

Announcing the contract this week, health secretary, John Reid, said electronic booking was not about “some whizz kids’ obsession with technology”, it was a first step towards translating the government’s desire to give people choice into a reality.

”If you want to know my mind, it is to give ordinary people the opportunity to do what the minority [of privately insured patients] has done for decades,” he said.

He admitted that e-booking would not reduce waiting lists, though pilots suggested that it would improve the use of resources by significantly reducing the 1.5 million “no shows” experienced hospital outpatients departments. These represent 10% of all appointments.

Electronic booking facilities and information about appointment availability will be vital if the government is to achieve its 2005 target for offering patients a choice of hospitals and times for their first outpatient visit.

The idea is that the choice will be made by patients in consultation with their GPs, though NHS Director-General of IT, Richard Granger, confirmed that other NHS staff, such as receptionists, will be able to operate the system and there will be some self-service facilities to enable to patients to manage their own bookings by phone or over the Internet.

The Cerner Millennium system to be implemented by SchlumbergerSema will also be capable of expanding to cover other NHS bookings and enable patients to book appointments with their GPs. For more details of the contract see Granger Says Firms Will Sign up To Terms and Conditions.