‘Netflix for health’ care provider to offer British subscribers who wish to beat NHS delays appointments with consultants within 48 hours for £20 a month
- MyWay service is a ‘first of its kind’ solution set up to beat NHS waiting times
- Subscriptions for patients start at £20 a month for a minimum of 12 months
A private health care provider has launched a ‘Netflix-style’ service that gives subscribers access to consultants within 48 hours.
The MyWay service, which has been set up by Circle Health Group, is a ‘first of its kind solution’ that is intended to help patients beat NHS waiting times and delays to appointments in the UK.
Subscriptions to the service start at £20 a month, with patients required to sign up to a minimum of 12 months. But only people that have been using the service for 30 days will be able to access the rapid appointments with consultants.
MyWay offers access to a GP consultation within roughly a day, while in-person appointments as well as scans and blood tests are available shortly after.
The launch of the service comes as consultants staged their first walk-out in more than a decade earlier this week.
A private health care provider has launched a ‘Netflix-style’ service that gives subscribers access to consultants within 48 hours for £20 a month
The MyWay service, which has been set up by Circle Health Group, is a ‘first of its kind solution’ that is intended to help patients beat NHS waiting times and delays to appointments in the UK
The launch of the service comes as consultants staged their first walk-out in more than a decade earlier this week
Circle Health said the subscription service will allow people with health issues to get back to work sooner as increasing numbers of workers are being forced to stay at home due to long-term illnesses.
To sign up to the service, patients are required to complete an easy ‘five-box’ process compared to more time-consuming questionairres that are required to take out life insurance.
Mr Paul Manning, a consultant surgeon at Nottinghamshire University Hospital NHS Trust, who designed the service, told the Telegraph: ‘The patients we’re seeing now are more acute and less able to return to work.
‘In the UK, there’s a huge gap in provision for people who are worried about long waiting lists taking them out of the workforce, but find private medical insurance too costly or complex – particularly sole traders, small business owners or people with any kind of pre-existing condition.’
On Thursday thousands of senior doctors in England took strike action in a ongoing dispute over pay, which will last until 7am on Saturday.
Thousands of operations, procedures and appointments have been cancelled and are being rescheduled as a result.
It came just two days after junior doctors staged a five-day walkout, the longest in the history of the NHS.
More than 24,000 consultants voted in the British Medical Association (BMA) ballot for industrial action last month, with the vast majority, 86 per cent, voting in favour.
The Government has told consultants they will receive a 6 per cent pay rise, but the BMA has called this ‘derisory’ and said doctors have seen real-term take-home pay fall by more than a third over the last 14 years.
According to the BMA, consultants on a 2003 contract earn a starting salary of £88,364 in basic pay, rising to £119,133 after around 19 years.
The Department of Health said extra payments such as clinical excellence awards and cash for being on call would take the average NHS pay for consultants in 2023/24 to around £134,000.