Following a pilot programme launched in Cornwall last year, in the recent Spring Budget Chancellor Jeremy Hunt confirmed that the NHS Health Check will become digitised in order to ‘identify and prevent more cases of cardiovascular disease’. Instead of a face-to-face meeting, the proposal is to offer patients a digital check that includes an online questionnaire, a kit to take a blood sample at home, and a blood pressure check at the pharmacy or in the GP's waiting room.
The implementation of this policy is being heavily linked to increasing rates of nationally reported workforce inactivity, stating that 2.5 million people are inactive due to long-term sickness – 410,000 more people than before the pandemic.
The digital approach to implementing prevention programmes, such as the NHS Health Check outlined in the Chancellor's budget speech, will be more convenient for many people but will be far less popular with groups with little or very low levels of IT skills and health literacy, meaning a number of at risk groups will fall through the net of digital inclusion.
This proposed approach may in fact exacerbate health inequalities if it is not carefully implemented to promote uptake in under-served groups. Which is why we think it is extremely important that the NHS and GP practices continue to offer the option of face-to-face prevention programmes as well offering support to promote digital inclusion. However, we do see that this can put a strain on many clinicians, and that is where the health kiosk comes into its own...
What happens at the NHS Health Check?
The NHS Health Check is a free check-up of overall health provided for adults in the UK between the ages of 40 and 74 who are not already diagnosed with a pre-existing condition. It can tell a patient whether they are at higher risk of getting certain health problems, such as:
- Heart disease
- Diabetes
- Kidney disease
- Stroke
During the check-up a clinician can also discuss how to reduce the risk of these conditions and dementia with the patient.
It takes roughly 20 to 30 minutes for an NHS Health Check. A nurse or a healthcare assistant will ask about your lifestyle and family history, as well as measure your height and weight, take your blood pressure, and do a blood test. The results of your blood tests can reveal your risk of heart disease, stroke, kidney disease, and diabetes.
Cut Clinician time with the EK Health Kiosk:
Let us explain what the EK Health Kiosk is and how it can benefit your practice, carrying out more health checks without straining resources. We know that giving these checks 20 to 30 minutes can be hard on your practice, and since you usually only have 10 minutes with each patient, it's important to make the most of every minute. Our EK Health Kiosks can take care of blood pressure, height, and weight, as well as help patients through the targeted NHS Health Check questions. This means that when your patient sits down in front of you, you'll already have this information, which will cut the time needed for the NHS Health Check.
Patients also can use our kiosk to answer health questions from our library of 18+ Care Pathways and collect vital sign measurements without requiring the assistance of a professional. SNOMED coding is used to seamlessly integrate the results into the patient record. This improves patient flow without sacrificing care while also recording QOF data, reducing clinical time and allowing for more appointments.
How does it work?
The patient logs into the kiosk with their name and date of birth, which are cross-checked against their medical records, to complete questionnaires and assessments that are relevant to them. The results are SNOMED tagged and stored in the patient's medical record (both EMIS and SystmOne), where a clinician can review them. Our customisable questionnaires include Asthma Reviews, Oral Contraceptive Medication Reviews, Diabetes, Hypertension and more!
• No clinical intervention
• No manual inputting
• Automatic integration with EMIS and SystmOne using SNOMED
• Data capture for QOF and IFF
• Free up face to face appointments
• Alert triggers for irregular readings
• Pathways can be customised
• Release time to care
To find out more about the EK Health Kiosk and what benefits it can bring to your practice, get in touch with us on 01223 812737 or hello@ekinteractive.co.uk, we’d be happy to discuss this with you and arrange a free, no obligation demo.
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