Coronavirus: Patients to see doctors virtually under government’s lockdown exit plan

Covid-19 roadmap lays out plan to bolster the NHS with increased screening, community-care capacity, and supply of PPE for health workers

More patients could be monitored from their own homes (Getty/iStock)

More patients will see their doctors virtually and face being monitored remotely in their own homes as part of plans to keep NHS services running under the strain of the coronavirus.

In the government’s roadmap for how the UK will exit lockdown and recover from the pandemic, it sets out a vision for the NHS that includes boosting the supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) to staff, increasing community capacity, and investment in wider preventive health measures.

The document says that the government will “seek innovative operating models” for the NHS and care sectors “to strengthen them for the long term and make them safer for patients and staff in a world where Covid-19 continues to be a risk”.

“This might include using more telemedicine and remote monitoring to give patients hospital-level care from the comfort and safety of their own homes,” it continues.

To help hospitals discharge patients faster, the roadmap sets out a plan to increase “capacity in community care and step-down services ... to help ensure patients can be discharged from acute hospitals at the right time for them”.

“The government will establish a dedicated team to see how the NHS and health infrastructure can be supported for the Covid-19 recovery process and thereafter.”

The report also reveals a plan to invest in preventive health schemes to reduce obesity and other risk factors linked to Covid-19 deaths, as well as “personalised solutions to ill-health”, adding: “This will involve expanding the infrastructure for active travel [cycling and walking] and expanding health-screening services, especially through the NHS Health Check programme, which is currently under review.”

With the roadmap document, the government recommitted to its manifesto pledge to build 40 new hospitals and reform social care.

Throughout the epidemic, the supply of PPE to frontline healthcare and nursing home staff has been a consistent problem, with repeated shortages in supply and the army having to be brought in to help coordinate deliveries.

To boost supplies, the government has established a central team of 400 staff to source new supplies of PPE from around the world for the NHS. More than 200 UK-based companies are in discussion with the government to begin production of PPE.

More than 58,000 healthcare settings including GPs, pharmacies and social care providers are now part of a new nationwide PPE supply network.

Responding to the plan, Niall Dickson, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which represents organisations across healthcare, said: “This plan contains welcome recognition that the biggest threat to life remains the risk of a second peak that overwhelms the healthcare system this winter, when it will be under more pressure and the NHS still needs to deliver non-urgent care.

“Now is not the time to throw away the gains made in controlling the virus. Everyone is desperate to return to some kind of normality, but the NHS is still treating thousands of patients with Covid-19 and there is a tragedy unfolding in care homes. We have not yet cracked the PPE challenge nor access to testing, and we are not ready to roll out the test, track, trace strategy.”

He added: “The challenge facing the NHS is enormous. There is now a huge backlog of unmet demand, longer waiting lists for operations and thousands of patients who have had their treatment postponed.

“The NHS has been open for business throughout this pandemic but we know many patients have not sought help when they needed it and that is a real cause of concern.”