eConsult Health Limited Anmeldelser 497

I thought the old system was bad. This is somehow worse than waiting in a call queue for an hour and dealing with an over-worked receptionist. At least in that case you would get a straight "yes or no" at the end of it. Why am I having to fill in every detail of my case again, when i'm in the middle of an investigation, and all this information is in my medical record? I just want blood test results and I'm having to sit a minor GCSE just to get a message through to the surgery.

Waste of time spent ages going around in circles no consultation or appointment could not even find the form to fill in.spent time phoning up untill money ran out. Only place I could book was a smear test. NHS making things more difficult for the patient

If I could give zero stars, I would. My surgery now uses an e-consultation system to triage appointments, making it mandatory to complete the online form. However, the form is time-consuming, taking around 30 minutes to fill out, and it fails to address all medical concerns—there's not even an "Other" option to describe your issue. The system promises a call within 24 hours, but they never called. After waiting two days, I had to follow up myself, only to be told, "We’ll call you next week to book an appointment." What kind of service is that? It is increasingly frustrating to navigate, and booking an appointment has become nearly impossible. The quality of medical care is rapidly declining.

Filled out the econsult as had an issue needed looking into. The econsult told me to seek medical advice and wouldn't allow me to continue with filling out the form. But that was why I was filling out the econsult to seek medical advice! I didn't know what to do after that so I called 111 they told me I needed to see someone within 6 hours and made me an appointment at the hospital. But also asked me to try my GP again to see me within 6 hours and I could cancel the hospital appointment as the hospital was an hour's bus drive away. So I rang the GP surgery and the receptionist sent an econsult to the GP. The GP text me with an appointment for mid January. Luckily I did not cancel my hospital appointment yet as was waiting on the GP to call me. To cancel the January appointment I had to let my GP know through e consult and to be able to get my econsult form through to my GP I had to bypass all my issues questions and tick boxes to say nothing was wrong just so I could finish the form and get my cancellation through to the GP. I went to my hospital appointment and because all my econsults I sent my GP were now sat on their system I was met with a very rude nurse who didn't listen to me at all.
I won't be using e consult again neither will I ever call 111 again and I may actually even change my GP surgery

E consult online form, I filled it in a 7.30am on a Tuesday morning as I needed to see a doctor asap as I was really unwell, reply came back you will be notified by 6.30pm Wednesday!!! So it's virtually impossible to get a same day appointment now!! Unfortunately people will be ringing 111 to get a out of hours appointment. This system clearly isn't working for people who really need to see a doctor the same day.Update received a call from the GP practice the next day on Wednesday mid morning only to be told they don't have any appointments and to ring 111!!!!

Did econsult , gp replied 3.5 hours later called emergency ambulance. Arrived 14 hours later. Taken hospital heaving with bodies on chairs and beds in corridor, had mri 12 hours later, showed problem but could be managed at home. Told ring gp for pain relief Monday morning. Told surgery what I needed told do econsult, reply saying meds be done by end of following day! No pain relief left. Complained so script was signed but turns out not at my gp but next village, I can’t move hubby disabled. Gone from oramorph entonox paracetamol to diazepam paracetamol to nothing! Someone will die because of this system, how much is it costing, and it doesn’t give you options for what is actually wrong with you. Someone’s making money for a program that isn’t for for all !!

Somehow worse than the old "call the GP 100 times at 8am". If you are seriously ill, it doesnt send message to triage team and DOESNT TELL YOU WHAT TO DO, it says need to speak to someone, but thats why i filled in econsult, to speak to someone, GP won't talk to you. I have flu symptoms, can't talk, difficulty breathing. Also had some blood in cough, I think from excessive coughing, but I'm not a doctor so shouldn't make assumptions. Use econsult. Get a red "need to speak to someone" message. Then no information on what to do next. There is a blue button but if you press that, it says "you've chosen to sort yourself, your request has not gone to team". So the assumption is not to press blue button, and request will go to team. No. I used Monday, no response, got an online private appointment, got antibiotics as coughing blood, told if not better 48 hours contact GP again. So I'm not better, fill in econsult again, same red message. This time I call GP and they say if you get a red message NOTHING GOES TO TRIAGE TEAM, there's no record they can see of the two requests. She said it should say "call 111" or "go to walk in". It does neither. And you can call 111 or go to walk in without econsult.. so what's the point of econsult?

My literal job is in medtech where I implement and improve workflows. This would never get implemented as its relying on the patient to infer an action. There should be a clear 'out' for every scenario. This is something I would expect the graduate in my team to come up with.

Its great if you can access it. My GP opens it up, so say at 8am, but you cant find the surgery on the list. The surgery tell you all consult forms are taken. How can that happen so quickly. So frustrating

Not fit for purpose as used by my GP. Only available for less than half an hour in the morning. Total waste of time!

Was seen by a Nurse Practitioner who asked me to make a follow up
appointment for a months times using econsult,one month later I had received no appointment despite ringing the practice 5 times to see if someone could make the appointment for me.
After one month I looked the My Gp App for a non related issue to find that my econsult request had been signed off by a Correspondence Coordinator with no input from myself or the Nurse Practitioner who had initially request I make the appointment.
My medication had been changed and the whole purpose of the follow up appointment was to review how I was responding to the change.
I will now need to contact the surgery again to express my concern and disappointment that my request has been handled in this very unprofessional manner.

In theory the eConsult system is a good idea but like many ideas there are sometimes unintended consequences. Most GP practices use the 'demand' option to limit the demand from patients by turning off the 24/7 availability of the system, although the eConsult organisation themselves advice GPs to have it set 24/7. Some GPs do this by limiting the hours it is available for example to 8am to 10am Monday to Friday or by using a 'daily cap' on the number of eConsults for example one practice that sets it at 6 per day. Unfortunately the system is still widely advertised as being available 24 hrs a day and 7 days a week leading to patient frustration (it's a shame the NHS can't be honest about this issue and publish the statistics). Obviously GP practices do this because they are unable to cope with the demand. There is no solution to that problem so we will just have to put up with it. Whilst the system does ask a number of what some might consider unnecessary questions one big frustration patients have with the system is that if you specify something like 'breathing problems' the system is quite likely after you have spent 20mins filling in the eConsult at the end to tell you it can't submit the econsult and you need to telephone for an urgent appointment. From my own experience I now look to see when the GPs are available as a proportion of the practice will only work part-time so an eConsult for a non-urgent issue is best not raised on a Monday or Friday as the system usually closes quickly. In my practice when I asked the receptionists what was considered an admin eConsult they told me they print off all the eConsults anyway before passing them to GPs so it didn't make any difference (I have no idea why they do that). What I do now is write out the text I want to put in the eConsult in Word and then copy and paste it to the eConsult. I wait until 8.01am in the morning when the system opens to raise the eConsult and if the system then tells me that I have to telephone for an urgent appointment I can quickly go back and remove the answer(s) to symptom questions that caused the system to do this and paste the text in again (I reason that if I was having a heart attack or unable to breathe I wouldn't be sitting there raising an eConsult and when the practice calls back/gives me an appointment I can clarify my symptoms). You could try writing to your MP asking them to put more resources into GP practices but what's the point, it's not going to change in my lifetime. If you are old or not good with technology you are pretty much the forgotten minority unless you can get someone to help you (try AGEUK). If you are worried and are lucky enough to have some money then you can spend £120 and book a private GP face to face appointment the same day and get a pretty thorough consultation.

This system is designed for the benefit of doctors and not patients. And formerly I had a career in medicine! I spent ages going through the system twice for a simple request that a conversation with a human being could have sorted in two minutes.
Many people will find it difficult to access health care on this system, for example, older people, those without the technology and those with disabilities.
If I was anxious or depressed or feeling ill, I would probably give up.

This just doesn't work! I don't really understand this system at all. I tried using it in a time of need for myself, for my family. And all times we ended up going to the hospital directly as this system did the opposite to providing a solution, it is just a time wasting tool.

Absolutely ridiculous, gave up in the end! Was told by receptionist it was straight forward! It wasn’t! Very disappointing. I don’t know what they were thinking introducing such a stupid system 😩

Used eConsult today. After putting in page after page of information, I was then dumped on a page telling me my condition wasn't suitable for an e-consultation and that my information had not been sent to the GP. All that time writing and it all gets thrown straight into the toilet. Useless.

A non urgent request was made for an appointment with the practice my granddaughter attends to discuss an ongoing problem. After two weeks she was offered an appointment at 7.25pm which was a surprise as the surgery is always closed by 5pm. What a waste of time. The appointment was with a Bedoc doctor who was unable to access her medical records and was therefore unable to discuss her ongoing condition. He gave her a form for a blood test, when she has already had blood tests. So another E Consult and this time she will not be going out of hours to see a Bedoc doctor. Let's hope the cost of the E Consult system is not based on the number of requests it handles if we are going to have to make multiple requests to get a viable appointment!

OK, there are a lot of questions BUT, this is a very well thought through system for registering a consultation with your GP. I found it very easy to use and the free text feilds were very relavent and useful to capture specific messages. Well done.

I agree, I would give this service 0 if I could. Filling out a massive form every time is crazy plus our surgery switches it off at 10am but don't take calls until 11am. I got part way through the form and the service was switched off. I just want to talk to a person and book an appointment, now it is virtually impossible. I can understand why more people are going to A&E.

If I didn't already have blood pressure problems I would have after trying an e-consult. It took 15 minutes with endless irrelevant questions about an injury that I did not have, whether l smoked or drank alcohol and diverted me to an NHS login so I had to start again.
Appalling service particularly for the less computer literate.

After 45 minutes and countless irrelevant questions, the system was still nowhere near a resolution. I couldn't take it anymore and gave up. Why not just answer the phone and listen to what the patient has to say? Is this really the kind of technology that's supposed to improve our lives? I don’t think so.