Use online doctors in Singapore to ease NHS crisis, says think tank
Janet Eastham and
Laura Donnelly
DOCTORS in Singapore could offer consultations to UK patients to ease the burden on the NHS, a think tank has suggested.
Allowing the Asia-based clinicians to prescribe medicines to British patients could ease pressure on GPS and help poorer people access medical care, the Social Market Foundation (SMF) has argued.
A paper published by the think tank has identified key lessons the NHS could learn from Singapore’s famously efficient healthcare system. It also argues that Singaporean “polyclinics” could provide a cost-effective solution to the post-pandemic backlog.
The Social Market Foundation claims the island country spends 4.4 per cent of its national income on healthcare – less than half the proportion spent by the UK – but enjoys much better outcomes. Singapore’s infant mortality rate is half that of the UK and its population has lower levels of obesity and longer life expectancy, according to the SMF.
In a foreword to the briefing paper,
Lord Warner, a former health minister, says ministers should look to Singapore for inspiration. With NHS England reporting that less than half of British patients can “easily” secure a GP appointment, he says Singapore’s set-up could “help rescue our beleaguered NHS” from its “serious decline”.
Given one in eight people in the UK has sought out private healthcare – which can involve telemedicine – the paper suggests it would be a “natural” next step for doctors based in Singapore to be permitted to prescribe medication to patients in the UK. If this proved successful, the NHS could commission such services for rural areas with limited access to GP practices, it proposes.
These “polyclinics” would combine GP services with labs that carried out tests, and multidisciplinary teams to care for those with chronic health conditions.
“Polyclinics” became a buzzword in 2008 when Lord Darzi, then a health minister, tried to set up “one-stop shops”. But the British Medical Journal branded them “costly white elephants” and they were decommissioned under the coalition government.