Blog: £1.5 Billion Boost for NHS to Increase Outpatient Appointments, Prescribe Digital Highlights Efficient Solutions to Address Key Administrative Needs
The NHS recently announced a significant increase in funding, with an additional £1.5 billion allocated to enhance outpatient services. This budget boost aims to enable the NHS to deliver an additional 40,000 outpatient appointments each week, directly supporting frontline services and prioritising patient access to care. While a substantial portion of this funding will go toward doctors, nurses, and clinic operations, the budget does not address one of the critical operational challenges—administrative support.
With administrative costs accounting for roughly 40% of outpatient clinic expenditures, there is a growing need for solutions that streamline the generation, management, and distribution of clinical information. Traditional administrative processes involve substantial time and effort in creating and distributing appointment letters, notifications, and follow-up summaries to patients, GPs, and other referring parties.
This is where Prescribe’s innovative approach can transform NHS operations. Drawing on success from international implementations, particularly in Australia, Prescribe provides systems that minimise the administrative burden on clinicians and hospital staff while automating information generation and communication. Prescribe has recently secured the New South Wales framework for outpatient information delivery, including speech recognition, generative AI, and outsourced transcription services. These solutions enhance efficiency by eliminating the need for extensive operational admin teams and reducing clinician involvement in routine documentation.
Lessons from Australia: Efficiency Through Automated Workflow Solutions
Australia’s Local Health Districts (LHDs) have historically operated without budgets designated for administrative resources in outpatient services. This has driven a demand for comprehensive workflow solutions that can ensure outpatient communication is managed seamlessly without manual intervention. Prescribe’s Amplify+® provides an all-in-one platform that addresses these needs by combining best-in-class workflow solutions to automate the creation, distribution, and tracking of outpatient letters.
The automation capabilities within Amplify+® offer an ideal model for NHS outpatient services, allowing for complete automation, generation, and distribution of clinical information without the traditional administrative overhead. As the NHS seeks to maximise the impact of this new funding, adopting proven solutions like Amplify+® could enable healthcare systems to provide efficient, patient-centered care with significantly reduced operational burden on both clinicians and administrative teams.
If you’d like to find out more about Amplify+® or to book a short demonstration, request more information here
