Babylon Healthcare drops legal challenge against CQC

A legal challenge made by Babylon Healthcare Services against a Care Quality Commission (CQC) report has been dropped with the company agreeing to pay the regulator’s £11,000 legal costs.

Earlier this month Babylon, which allows patients to pay for a 10-minute video call with a GP, took the CQC to the High Court to prevent the publication of a report that included criticisms of its online service following an inspection in July.

The CQC report raised a number of concerns regarding the potential for prescriptions being misused and information not always being shared with the patient’s primary GP.

The High Court ruled against the injunction and the report was published on 8 December.

Speaking at the CQC’s latest board meeting on Tuesday, Rebecca Lloyd Jones CQC’s director of governance and legal services, confirmed Babylon had withdrawn its application of a judicial review in the High Court.

“I am pleased to say that Babylon have withdrawn the application which brings these legal proceedings to a conclusion,” Lloyd Jones said.

Lloyd Jones also told the board that during the 8 December hearing, Babylon’s review application was granted by the judge but with “limited grounds” and he told the court he hoped the case would not proceed further.

She also said that there was “no change to the substance” of the report following the court hearing.

A spokesman for CQC confirmed to Digital Health News that Babylon has also agreed to pay the regulator £11,000 in costs.

Babylon have also been contacted for comment, but not responded by time of publication.

As well as raising concerns about the potential for prescriptions to be misused the report included comments from users who said, ‘GPs were polite, made them feel at ease and they were listened to by the GP’.

The regulator also stated that most services ‘were safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led’.

Following the publication of the report, Babylon criticised the CQC and said it had a “duty” to point out the regulators “shortcomings”.

In a statement published on its website, Babylon said the CQC’s comments demonstrated a ‘failure’ to understand what Babylon does and a ‘lack of understanding around the rules governing the sharing of patient records’.