Health secretary champions self-diagnostic website to ease NHS pressures
Health secretary Jeremy Hunt is embracing a hi-tech solution to the ever growing pressure facing the NHS, a diagnostic website which relies on computer programs rather than doctors to appraise patients.
Intended to support the non-emergency NHS 111 phone line the online system would allow people to obtain advice without leaving their computer screens.
The initiative comes at a time of increased pressure on A&E departments amidst a spike in winter demand, with the website seen as an ideal way to channel non urgent cases away from hard-pressed hospitals.
Speaking to LBC Radio Hunt explained: “If I had to say there was one thing missing from 111, it is an online version of it. You would go on a website and not have to go through the questions with a call centre.
“We definitely want it in the next couple of years, an online version of 111.”