Addressing the Failures in the UK Health Sector: How Digital Transformation Can Help
The UK health sector is struggling. As the population’s life expectancy lengthens, the workload for doctors steadily increases. This increase in work puts a significant strain on our doctors, causing many to retire, switch to part-time work or face their own health struggles. This issue leaves patients with fewer available doctors and shorter, less thorough visits. Digital transformation can change everything – decreasing the workload of healthcare workers’, granting patients easier access to high-quality healthcare, and creating a more efficient health sector for the UK.
Life Expectancy
One study examined life expectancy trends in the UK. The researchers found that life expectancy has ceased to increase since 2010, with certain communities even showing decreases in life expectancy. As the healthcare system faces an inequality in doctor-to-patient ratios, access to high-quality healthcare is becoming more and more challenging to come by for UK citizens.
Government and Tax Pounds
Central funding set by the government is no longer keeping up with the demand of the UK health sector’s needs. The citizen’s tax pounds are being stretched to the maximum as drug and technology innovation, patient expectations, non-communicable diseases, and elderly patients are on the rise.
The current structure of the health sector, being a ‘disease detection and treatment’ focused healthcare system, is not enough to keep the structure intact. Doctors need help. The healthcare system needs a preventative design set in place to decrease the number of sick patients needing a doctor.
Quality of Service
As the number of patients increases and the number of doctors decreases, the UK’s quality of care has suffered. One study reported that 44% of UK adults believe the healthcare system worked well, a 19% decline from 2010. While the UK still has a similar quality of service as other countries featured in the study, UK citizens are reporting less satisfaction with overall healthcare than they have in previous years.
Fewer doctors are looking after greater numbers of patients.
The UK is currently experiencing some of the most severe pressures in its history.Official data show that 23% of family doctors in England – or more than 6,000 – are 55 or over and expected to quit within the next few years.
The average age at which doctors retire is now 59, and only one in 10 is under 35. The number of doctors retiring early has more than trebled since 2008.
And the average number of patients each GP is responsible for has increased by around 300.
How Digital Transformation Can Change the Health Sector
Digital transformation not only allows patients to have a more considerable say in the healthcare they receive but also allows them to become more active in maintaining their health and wellness. Through the use of smart devices and making healthcare data and information more accessible, UK citizens can become well-versed in foods, activities, and other things they can do to prevent serious illnesses or injuries, helping to keep them out of the doctor’s office.
Digital transformation can help ensure that every citizen has access to the healthcare they need. With preventative measures, fewer citizens will need to see a doctor. With access to a doctor from home, fewer citizens will need to go to a doctor in person. With a smaller workload, doctors will be able to provide their patients with higher-quality service. The benefits of digital transformation are seemingly endless.
As you can see, digital transformation can change healthcare as we know it, allowing healthcare workers, GPs, other medical professionals to create a healthier work-life balance and patients to have a stronger voice in the healthcare they receive. This is why CheckUp Health was created – Empowering the patient and the doctor to proactively preserve health and live longer happy life. Leveraging medical knowledge, beyond the 1:1 interaction between a doctor and patient, supported by technology, and scaling it to improve the health of thousands and potentially millions of people worldwide.
References: https://www.bma.org.uk/advice-and-support/nhs-delivery-and-workforce/pressures/pressures-in-general-practice
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(21)00205-X/fulltext
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0923753419321295