More than 10 million GP appointments will be booked online by the end of this financial year, according to NHS England projections celebrating the rapid adoption of online services by GPs.
The same projection reveals practices are on course to deliver 15 million online prescription orders by April 2016 as well, with 97% of patients able to access online services since it became a contract requirement in 2014/15.
There are also growing numbers of practices offering online access to patient’s record information ahead of it becoming a contractual requirement by 1 April 2016.
So far this year patients have viewed their test results 268,144 times, and viewed letters about their care 257,825 times.
NHS England director of digital technology Beverley Bryant welcomed the improvements but called on practices to ‘go further, faster’ in the offer of online services in future and highlighted new guidance for ‘Patient Online’ services to support this.
She said: ‘We need to go further and faster – more patients, accessing more services and being able to view more information about their health and care.
‘This updated guidance and resource should give practices and their local partners all the information they need to be able to capitalise on the opportunities that technology presents to improve services for patients and increase the efficiency of their practices.’
