GP at Hand pauses out-of-area patient registrations

Exclusive Babylon has indefinitely suspended out-of-area patient registrations for its NHS arm GP at Hand, Pulse has learned.

The digital-first provider has told patients they must live in Central Fulham – where the practice is based – to successfully register for the service.

Babylon told Pulse it imposed the new restriction to ensure it can continue to be able to provide care and access to its existing patients.

The provider said it has seen high demand for its NHS service, adding that it will review its decision to temporarily suspend out-of-area registrations.

A Babylon spokesperson told Pulse: ‘In order to ensure we continue to provide the highest quality of care and access to GPs and other clinicians that our current patients can book an appointment with 24 hours a day/seven days a week, we have temporarily paused the registration of new out-of-area patients.’

They added: ‘Our list remains open for patients living in-area to register as normal. We will continue to review this regularly and hope to be able to offer many more patients the benefits of 24/7 care in the future.

‘We remain fully committed to our work in the UK and with our partners at the NHS.’

The GP provider became the first practice in England to register more than 100,000 patients in August 2021.

It comes after GP at Hand pulled out of Birmingham in October, with 5,000 patients told they must register elsewhere. It also ended two long-term acute trust partnerships last year.

Babylon CEO Dr Ali Parsa, previously admitted that the company loses money on every new patient.