Half of doctors spending hour a day on NHS paperwork

MORE than half of doctors are wasting at least an hour a day on clerical tasks, according to a review of NHS bureaucracy which calls on the service to modernise.

The health service is being urged to let medics communicate with patients securely over Whatsapp and provide staff with simpler technology, so more time can be devoted to patient care.

Earlier this year, Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, ordered a “bureaucracy- busting push” under NHS reforms that aim to use temporary changes made during the pandemic as a way to modernise the service.

NHS staff were asked to share their daily irritations, and ideas on ways in which rules and regulations could be amended to free them up.

The review has now identified more than 1,000 examples of excessive bureaucracy faced by medics.

Doctors were found to spend at least an hour a day on tasks which could have been carried out by non-clinical staff. And medics working in the community spent at least a third of their time on administration and patient coordination.

The review calls for changes to streamline processes, such as secure use of Whatsapp, and single logins across multiple computers, which would allow staff to spend more time on patient care.

Today, ministers will publish a new strategy to streamline processes and reduce bureaucracy.

Mr Hancock is expected to tell a conference of the NHS Confederation that left unchecked, rules and regulations in the NHS can too often “outgrow their original purpose – and they can stifle innovation and damage morale”.

He said the contributions from frontline staff had been vital in “illuminating those daily irritations that make people’s lives harder – like onerous clearance processes, complicated appraisals, and slow discharges”.

“The changes we need to make don’t always have to be big,” he will say.

“In the pandemic, we’ve seen that little things can make a big difference, for instance letting doctors and nurses communicate with patients securely over Whatsapp or providing single logins across multiple different computers.

“I’m determined that we seize this moment and build on the very best of what we have seen over these past nine months.”