The CQC rated the South Doc Services Limited as ‘outstanding’ in a report on 11 July. The service operates virtual primary care services for the MyHealthcare GP federation, functioning at several hubs across Birmingham with more than 47 GP practices under its umbrella catering to around 300,000 registered patients. The report praised how the “service used technology to improve treatment and to support patients’ independence”.

Each of its practice has complete access to the Virtual Centre, based at West Heath Medical Centre, inspected by the CQC in April 2018.

The digital service is available throughout the week for patients to book telephonic or video consultations with a GP, a nurse or a prescribing pharmacist. It also includes an app for patients and a prescription ordering department (POD) accessible over the telephone.

The CQC also commended the provider’s MyHealthcare Patient App, which offers chronic diseases and lifestyle management. The app stores patients’ records which included 3000 registered people at the time of the publication of the report.

The unverified data from the virtual service data had “reduced the burden on other services such as hospital emergency departments,” the inspectors noted.

 Nirmal Vora, CEO at SDS MyHealthcare, expressed delight at the rating. He said, “As an innovative partner, we’re keen to bring the NHS’s online offering into the modern era. Patients already enjoy outstanding digital experiences in the retail and entertainment sectors, for example, and we’re determined to add public healthcare to that list.”

“As an NHS initiative, we are ideally placed to have full access to all its many services. This gives us a unique advantage over the private sector. But to be truly successful, it’s vital that our technology outperforms that of our commercial rivals. This is why we’re working hard to improve our video consultations and app capabilities even further.”