More than 2,000 GP practices have signed up to the online GP registration service, meeting the NHS pledge set out in the primary care recovery plan earlier this year.
The service was launched last year and has already benefited 750,000 patients across England, with one in three practices now offering the digital tool.
While many GP surgeries still use paper forms, the service has been shown to eliminate admin time for staff by enabling patients to register with a GP online at any time of the day.
Nearly half (48%) of people using the service did so outside of GP practice opening hours and one in 10 used the tool in another language.
The latest figures indicate service users include:
- Patients switching GPs (66%)
- Visitors or migrants (23%)
- Patients registering for the first time (5%)
- Newborns (4%)
- Ex-military patients (1%)
The NHS can also provide GP practices with a paper form that uses the same questions as the online service to ensure those who prefer not to register digitally can still do so efficiently.
Katie Howard, who is the practice manager at Cleevelands Medical Centre in Cheltenham, said: “Our patients have found it very revolutionary, as it’s so user-friendly and they can use it on the go.”
She continued: “It saves our surgery staff between three to five minutes per patient. When you consider we get 25 registrations a day, that is a significant amount of time we are saving to invest back into the patients.”
The 2,000 milestone was achieved a month ahead of schedule as over 2,100 GP surgeries had signed up to the digital service by the end of November. The service is freely available to all practices in England.
NHS England’s national primary care director, Dr Amanda Doyle, said: “Online GP registration is one of the many innovative ways the NHS is transforming how practices work to make it as easy as possible for patients to get the care they need.
“At a time when record numbers of patients are coming forward to see their GP, it helps free up the time of busy practice staff so they can spend more time focusing on patients, and less time filling in paperwork.”
Image credit: iStock
