Health workers will be sent door-to-door under drastic new NHS plans to tackle sickness rates across England, according to reports.
A community health worker will be allocated 120 homes to visit every month to see if help is needed under plans set to be rolled out in June, The Daily Telegraph reports.
Health secretary Wes Streeting said trials of the scheme showed “encouraging signs” in slashing the number of heavy NHS users which he called “frequent flyers” of A&E departments.
A pilot scheme in Westminster, London, showed a dramatic 10 per cent drop in hospital admissions over a year, The Daily Telegraph reports.
“We’re seeing some really encouraging signs about what can happen if you’ve got the right care in the right place at the right time,” Mr Streeting said.
The scheme, set to be rolled out in 25 parts of England, is part of Mr Streeting’s 10-year plan for the NHS, which could also see younger people directed to pharmacy care using the NHS app, leaving GPs to devote their time to sicker and older patients.
The health secretary said a modernised version of the health service’s phone app could mean the NHS could “do a much better and faster job of making sure patients get the right care at the right time in the right place”.
He told the i newspaper: “If you are someone who tends to be younger, fitter, healthier, you probably won’t need to see the same GP every time you are going in for something.”
In March, it was announced that NHS England would be abolished and the service would be brought into the control of ministers.
The changes marked a reversal of a 2012 shake-up of the NHS under the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, which the Government said created “burdensome” layers of bureaucracy without any clear lines of accountability.
The plan will focus on the “three shifts” the Government say are needed, including moving NHS services towards more community-based care, preventing people getting ill in the first place and better use of digital technology.
Mr Streeting also repeated his belief that the NHS is “ not all about money”.
He said that “you can’t just keep on pouring ever increasing amounts of taxpayers’ money into a system that is not set up to deliver best use of that money and best care for patients and that’s why the system needs to change”.
