Retired doctors in England will be able to re-join the NHS to carry out outpatient appointments using a new digital platform to help reduce waiting lists.
From the autumn, newly-retired doctors will be able to use the digital platform where they will be able to offer their availability to NHS trusts across England to perform outpatient appointments, either virtually or in person.
NHS hospitals will choose the consultant whose skillset and availability best match the appointments they need covered, which are scheduled and arranged with patients in the normal way.
More than four-fifths of people on the waiting list require outpatient appointments, rather than surgical procedures. Consultants carrying out remote appointments could be based anywhere in England, helping hospitals in areas with the highest demand.
Speaking at the NHS ConfedExpo in Manchester yesterday, NHS England’s chief executive Amanda Pritchard, said: “Ahead of the NHS 75th birthday in July, this new platform is an innovative example of how we are constantly adapting the way we work to benefit patients by helping to reduce waiting times as well as supporting staff.
“Using this digital tool will help us to match patients with retired doctors who we know are keen to stay working in a flexible way so they can keep caring for patients, as well as allowing us to expand capacity to see even more patients – and faster.
“NHS staff have already made excellent progress against our Elective Recovery Plan – and this platform will not only help us continue to reduce the longest waits but it will also help us slash agency spend, using the existing capacity of experienced doctors who still have so much to offer the NHS”.
Workforce data shows about 1,000 consultants leave the NHS for retirement each year.
Health and social care secretary Steve Barclay said: “Technology is transforming the NHS, and this digital platform will ensure that more patients receive the highest quality care from experienced consultants when and where they need it.
“We have already made significant progress in busting the backlogs by virtually eliminating the longest waits for treatment, while 18-month waits have fallen by more than 91% from their September 2021 peak”.
The platform aims to provide trusts with an alternative to using expensive agency staff, while allowing experienced specialists who want to keep working in the NHS a bit longer with a route back in with more flexibility.
The new tool will help to deliver the NHS Elective Recovery Plan, the most ambitious catch-up programme in health service history, helping to cut the longest waits ahead of the next target of virtually eliminating waits of more than 65 weeks by March 2024.
The new digital platform for retired doctors has been announced during junior doctors’ third strike since March and at a time when consultant members of the British Medical Association are voting on industrial action. If they vote in favour, the BMA has said there will be a consultants strike on 20-21 July and the mandate for industrial action will continue until Christmas.
Danny Mortimer, chief executive of NHS Employers, said: “The NHS has already been working hard to clear the backlogs but concerted action is needed to help it go even further. With demand so high and with 432,000 outpatient appointments having had to be cancelled or rescheduled because of the walkouts over the last six months, health leaders will welcome reinforcements in the form of retired medics re-joining the service to lend their support.
“This is on top of flexibilities that the NHS offers already around retirement and working arrangements so that vital talent can be retained. While this new initiative is needed and will help, 8% of medical posts in secondary care are currently vacant, and so wider efforts beyond this welcome initiative will be needed to address the staffing vacancies we have in the NHS.
“These wider efforts need to be set out clearly in a comprehensive workforce plan, which we are told is imminent.”
The first target of virtually eliminating two-year waits was met last summer and despite Covid and flu, which contributed to the busiest winter the NHS has seen, coupled with disruptive industrial action, 18-month waits have been cut by 90%.
All appropriate checks will be carried out before consultants become fully registered on the platform, and the programme will be open to recently-retired consultants with NHS experience, who have an active registration on the specialist register with the General Medical Council, and who also hold a Certificate of Completion of Training.
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