Dr Topol says the NHS, as an efficient, proven system delivering healthcare for the whole population, is well placed to take advantage of new medical technology and the UK is already leading the world in genomics (the study of an individual’s genes), which allows better diagnosis and more personalised care.
Personalised service
Welcoming the report, the Health and Social Care Secretary, Matt Hancock, said technology saved lives and opportunities had to be seized – but when it came to sophisticated technology, the NHS was lagging behind Tesco.
“They know who you are through loyalty cards, where you shop, through store IDs, what you buy, the items scanned at the checkout,” he said.
“They shape their offers with a personalised service in order to deliver for you, the customer.
“The NHS doesn’t have anything like that yet.”
It still did not have the data to determine which hospitals patients had been to and what medicines they were taking, Mr Hancock added.
Financial incentive
Sceptics will say this needs money and the NHS in England already has multiple calls on the funding allocated by the government.
Danny Mortimer, chief executive of NHS Employers, said: “The deployment of technology will of course require significant resource and investment and we would repeat that this needs to be properly funded by government and not left to already stretched individual NHS trusts to dig even deeper to fund.”
On the other hand, the NHS has a powerful financial incentive to adopt the Topol vision.
More patient care in the home in theory means less need for expensive overnight stays in hospital.
Telemedicine means consultants can get through longer lists of patients, using video or phone consultations.
The challenge is to ensure the drive for efficiency does not over-ride the need for human interaction between doctor and patient when required.