Boots extends partnership with LIVI as it looks to expand digital offering

Boots has chosen online GP provider, LIVI, as its preferred partner as the retailer looks to expand its digital offering for customers.

More details have been revealed about the partnership after it was initially announced at Digital Health Rewired in March. The partnership marks a step up in the collaboration they have been working on over the last nine months, which includes a pilot of an in-store LIVI service in two Boots UK stores.

The new partnership will include a further rollout of new stores offering digital services, as well as a deepening of in-store innovations such as diagnostics capabilities, making digital care more accessible for Boots customers.

There will also be a trial of a new online GP and pharmacy video consultation service, which has been brought forward to assist patients isolating due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

LIVI’s managing director, Juliet Bauer, presented the partnership at Rewired saying it would bring together the company’s “deep digital experience” with Boots’ “unique physical footprint, retail and pharmacy expertise”.

She added: “We are extremely proud to be chosen by Boots UK to be its preferred digital health partner, bringing together our companies’ world-class respective expertise. With our NHS facing unprecedented pressure, we are pleased to be opening up access to pharmacists on our platform and offering more people digital healthcare opportunities.

“Boots UK shares our ethos that the health system should be responsive to the needs of patients. By tapping into our digital health tech, millions of Boots UK customers will be able to access a more responsive and flexible health service.”

The two organisations have been clear that they are working closely with the local and national NHS to launch new services in support of its long-term vision.

They are both working together to look into trialling how patients could remotely access a Boots pharmacist via the LIVI app, to get general health advice and to have a conversation face-to-face about their own prescription medications.

Richard Corbridge, director of high street healthcare at Boots UK, added: “We announced at the Rewired conference in early March that the Boots LIVI partnership is just the start of a collaboration to bring access to health, care and wellness for as many customers and patients as possible during the current crisis and beyond.

“The ability to connect the primary care journey to the pharmacy outcome is high on everyone’s agenda right now, to be able to do this digitally will bring huge benefit, improving the way care can be delivered to our customers and patients.”

Other partnerships announced by Boots include ones with Public Health England for the How Are You quiz that was delivered in January and with Doctor Care Anywhere (DCA) offering digital prescriptions for patients that have had a virtual consultation with a DCA GP and are insured through AXA in the London area.