Royal Wolverhampton Trust (RWT) has become the first NHS trust to sign a deal with Babylon Health to access its Covid-19 app for city-wide coverage.
All patients registered with RWT, around 300,000 in total, will have access to the new Covid-19 Care Assistant app which delivers information and remote care for patients who are concerned they may have the virus. Patients can use the service 24/7 to check their symptoms, track their illness, cope with self-isolation, access information, chat with trained staff, and consult doctors who can carry out virtual consultations and referrals.
Access to the technology will help lower-risk patients with their needs, while freeing up clinicians to focus on the people who need help most.
The app will also be available to all RWT staff – no matter where they live. It will be made available to staff immediately and will then be rolled out to the general public next week.
Babylon owns and runs the GP at Hand service, an app that can help patients book a video appointment with a healthcare professional at any time of day or night.
Umang Patel, clinical director at Babylon, said: “What’s most important, not least because Wolverhampton was so badly hit with Covid-19 from so early on, was making sure it was able to have as many tools as possible delivering the right information to people.”
She added: “Covid-19 shows us it doesn’t matter how good your telemedicine is, you need to link that in with the hospital service because, of course, when people get sick, they get sick and require hospital medicine.”