A third of London’s mental-health providers are rejecting patient referrals from Babylon Health, a video-calling service used by thousands. Former staff say the startup is struggling to plug into Britain’s healthcare system.
On a winter’s day in February 2018, a British woman with a history of depression had one of her first ever chats with a doctor via video call. At first the call was a revelation. She couldn’t afford private healthcare and was used to waiting weeks to see a doctor through Britain's free, National Health Service . Now she could see an NHS doctor within hours.
She never did. Lauren should have been connected to a local psychiatrist within 24 hours, according to a spokesperson for mental health charity Mind. But almost a year on since that consultation, Lauren says she has yet to see a psychiatrist through Babylon’s GP At Hand, caught in an administrative bottleneck that two people who worked at the company say is tripping up many mental health patients who made Babylon their main doctor.
Babylon blames vested interests in the NHS: “Some senior individuals in a few London clinical commissioning groups and providers continue to put their narrow business interests or ideology ahead of patient care,” says a spokesman, who says that a third of London’s mental health care providers are not followingabout treating patients from other boroughs. The startup has spent the past year trying to fix its referral delays through a series of meetings with NHS representatives, the spokesman says.
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