NHS England has released its publication of appointments in general practice for August 2023, noting a 447,673 increase in the number of video/online appointments in August 2023, from August 2022.
Representing 2.11 percent of the total of 28,194,025 appointments in general practice in August 2023, 597,670 video/online appointments were recorded from the participating 6,300 GP practices submitting data. The count for video/online appointments has been increasing, with 229,782 in May 2023, 408,885 in June 2023, and 512,827 in July 2023.
For August 2023, the number of home visits increased from August 2022, and the number of telephone appointments fell from 7,950,135 in August 2022 to 7,480,592 in August 2023.
The publication also shared that 43.7 percent of appointments in August 2023 took place on the same day that they were booked, and 90.5 percent of all appointments were attended in August 2023.
To view the appointment data, visit the NHS England dashboard here.
In digital primary care news this week, the Competition and Markets Authority has cleared UnitedHealth’s £1.2 billion EMIS purchase.
NHS England, as part of its General Practice Improvement Programme, has shared a support offer to focus on improving telephone journeys in general practice. It aims to support practices and PCNs in choosing, purchasing and optimising the use of advanced cloud-based telephony, the guidance covers the functionality offered; the use of call data to make improvements with four key metrics outlined; aligning handling capacity with demand; making continuous improvements to telephone journeys; and scaling telephony.
In September, through our digital primary care channel, we published insights from HTN speakers on digital primary care.
