Push Doctor raises £14m amid Covid bounce

Push Doctor has seen the number of people using its app double during the pandemic

GP-on-demand service Push Doctor has raised £13.7m in fresh cash after having seen patient numbers more than double to 5.4 million Britons during the pandemic.

The company secured the cash from existing backers including London-listed venture capital firm Draper Esprit and Accelerated Digital Ventures. Part of the funding also came from the Government’s Future Fund scheme. 

The round is understood to value the Manchester-based company at around £60m. It was last valued at around $63m (£48m) at the end of 2019.

Push Doctor is planning to spend the latest funds on scaling up its services, having seen a boom in demand during the pandemic. The start-up, which was founded in 2013, lets users book GP appointments through their phones, see a doctor through a video chat service, and gain access to their prescriptions. 

In recent months, the company has been striking partnerships with NHS bodies to allow more patients access to online GP consultations at a time when many surgeries have remained closed.

Under the NHS Long Term Plan, the health service has laid out ambitions to allow every patient in the UK access to online digital GP consultations. Estimates suggest around half of the 102 million GP appointments which took place between March and July this year took place either via phone or video link.

Wais Shaifta, chief executive of Push Doctor, said: "We are proud to be playing our part in helping our National Health Service through this challenging period and these funds will be put to work in scaling-up the NHS’s digital offering at a critical time in its existence.”

He said there had been an "aggressive spike" in demand during the first lockdown, and a second spike more recently.

"For me, this is the period where we can show the benefits of digital healthcare in the right way. Some people will come in and take advantage of the situation but we need to make sure everybody’s comfortable. This is healthcare where it’s a bit more delicate and you’re dealing with patient info and sensitive data."