Healthcare app Now GP has become the first to be approved as “safe” by the Care Quality Commission.
The Salford-based firm allows subscribers who are willing to pay to have an appointment with a doctor via video link through their smartphone, tablet, PC or Mac – taking away the hassle of getting to your local surgery and cutting queues in waiting rooms in the process.
Users wanting a consultation are usually seen within 15 minutes by one of the business’s own bank of doctors and can even request whether the GP is male or female.
Founder and CEO Lee Dentith, who spoke at BusinessCloud’s ‘Meet the disrupters’ event recently, described the news as an “honour”.
“Becoming the first mobile health service to meet CQC regulations demonstrates the positive steps Now Healthcare Group is making as a healthcare provider,” he said.
“It’s an honour to be selected to set the high standards which the rest of the industry must now follow.”
As well as having a health issue checked out, patients can be prescribed medication as a result of the appointment, which is delivered to them by the Now Pharmacy arm of the wider Now Healthcare company.
Delivery to London addresses is within a few hours or the following day for those outside the capital, or prescriptions can be sent directly to a patient’s local chemist for collection.
The former agency boss added: “This CQC Quality Report, coupled with our involvement with the DigitalHealth London Accelerator, reaffirms my belief that our service will be fully implemented cross the whole of the NHS in the coming years.
“We are aiming to be able to provide 100 million consultations in the next three to five years and also want to capitalise on technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence to help patients take better control of their healthcare and reduce pressures on the NHS.”
The app can now be white-labelled by Clinical Care Commissioning Groups and NHS surgeries to provide patients with the service.