Government calls in NETFLIX to help revamp NHS app

Netflix will be called in to revamp the NHS app under plans being considered by Health Secretary Wes Streeting.

He is keen to bring in the streaming giant’s experts to improve patients’ experience of the health service, The Mail on Sunday understands. 

A Government source said: ‘He wants the NHS app usability to be as good as Netflix. Why shouldn’t you get them to share their knowledge of how to improve customer experience?’

It is understood the Health Secretary also wants to use Amazon’s experience of logistics to help the NHS.

The proposals are part of plans to bring the health service’s technology into the 21st century.

Mr Streeting told the Labour party conference last week that operating theatres will be run like Formula 1 pit stops, with clinicians being sent into 20 hospitals to implement rapid surgery techniques.

The plan is modelled on operating theatres at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital in London.

Mr Streeting said: ‘We’re sending crack teams of top clinicians to hospitals across the country to roll out reforms – developed by surgeons – to treat more patients and cut waiting lists.’

Parts of the North and the Midlands with the country’s highest rates of sickness absence will be prioritised.

More than 34 million people are now registered to use the NHS app, which officials have described as a ‘digital front door’ to the NHS.

It is increasingly used to book appointments, with patients making over 1.4million requests to their GP through it in June 2024.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: ‘We recognise the vital role technology can play in transforming patient outcomes and experience. We are committed to enhancing the NHS app and making it work better for everyone.’

An NHS spokesman said: ‘More than three in four people in England have registered with the NHS app – more than double the number of subscribers to Netflix.’