How do doctor's appointments work now?

chewed

I've been told by my local surgery that they will only take appointments with doctor over the phone. They're still charging full whack!

How does this work in theory? Can they give a prescription over the phone if they think you have an infection? Or would they get you to come in for further examination?

The Hound Gone Wild

chewed wrote: »

I've been told by my local surgery that they will only take appointments with doctor over the phone. They're still charging full whack!

How does this work in theory? Can they give a prescription over the phone if they think you have an infection? Or would they get you to come in for further examination?

You call the surgery request an appointment and pay. A GP will call you back when they're free and talk over your symptoms. If they feel you need an examination they'll invite you to come down to the surgery. If they feel it can be managed with a drug they'll email a script to a pharmacy of your choice, this can take anywhere from 20 mins to 24hours, depending on the surgery.

Vorsprung

Most GP systems have been updated to allow instantaneous emailing of prescriptions to the patient's pharmacy.

palmcut

A secure system called Healthmail is used between GP's and pharmacies.

echo beach

Vorsprung wrote: »

Most GP systems have been updated to allow instantaneous emailing of prescriptions to the patient's pharmacy.

Instantaneous doesn’t mean your pharmacy will have it ready for collection two minutes after your doctor sends it.

Pharmacies are getting emails, phone in scripts and faxes (yes, some doctors and all the hospitals still use fax) from a number of places together with doing repeat prescriptions and walk-ins, all while having to try to maintain social distance. Many surgeries send prescriptions in batches a few times a day rather than one at a time. Your prescription won’t be the only one in the queue.

If you ask your doctor to include your mobile number on the prescription most pharmacies are happy to give you a call or text when it is ready.

Mrs OBumble

The Hound Gone Wild wrote: »

You call the surgery request an appointment and pay. A GP will call you back when they're free and talk over your symptoms. If they feel you need an examination they'll invite you to come down to the surgery. If they feel it can be managed with a drug they'll email a script to a pharmacy of your choice, this can take anywhere from 20 mins to 24hours, depending on the surgery.

What happens to someone with out a bank account?

Do they schedule the time for the call-back, and keep to the schedule? Must be hell for workers in very many jobs if not.

Vorsprung

echo beach wrote: »

Instantaneous doesn’t mean your pharmacy will have it ready for collection two minutes after your doctor sends it.

Pharmacies are getting emails, phone in scripts and faxes (yes, some doctors and all the hospitals still use fax) from a number of places together with doing repeat prescriptions and walk-ins, all while having to try to maintain social distance. Many surgeries send prescriptions in batches a few times a day rather than one at a time. Your prescription won’t be the only one in the queue.

If you ask your doctor to include your mobile number on the prescription most pharmacies are happy to give you a call or text when it is ready.

What system do you use that allows mobile phone numbers to be sent with an electronic script?

antix80

The Hound Gone Wild wrote: »

You call the surgery request an appointment and pay.

Not all GPs require prepayment.

As for phone/skype consultation fees. Some charge full whack. My GP charges a reduced fee of €40. My friend was charged €25 by his GP. So the costs vary a lot.

locum-motion

Vorsprung wrote: »

What system do you use that allows mobile phone numbers to be sent with an electronic script?

An “electronic script” is an e-mail sent via Healthmail.
Type the phone number into the body of the e-mail.

Vorsprung

locum-motion wrote: »

An “electronic script” is an e-mail sent via Healthmail.
Type the phone number into the body of the e-mail.

My system (Socrates) generates the email automatically from the medications I select, once I click “Healthmail script”. There’s no text box into which I can place phone numbers.

locum-motion

Vorsprung wrote: »

My system (Socrates) generates the email automatically from the medications I select, once I click “Healthmail script”. There’s no text box into which I can place phone numbers.

OK, fair enough. Sounds like Socrates’ programmers are idiots just like all the pharmacy software programmers are too!

Do you have something like a ‘Special Instructions’ box? Where do you type instructions that are longer or more complex than “i tds x1/52”, for example?

sillymoo

On Socrates I have set up a drug called "comment", I can add it to the script and just write whatever I want in the special instructions box (e.g please see date of issue if its to be dispensed on a certain day etc)

Vorsprung

sillymoo wrote: »

On Socrates I have set up a drug called "comment", I can add it to the script and just write whatever I want in the special instructions box (e.g please see date of issue if its to be dispensed on a certain day etc)

That’s a good thought, might implement that. Cheers.

Breezer

Vorsprung wrote: »

My system (Socrates) generates the email automatically from the medications I select, once I click “Healthmail script”. There’s no text box into which I can place phone numbers.

Is there no way to edit the template used to generate the email? We’ve modified ours quite a bit on Health One, as the default was a bit messy. Might be worth querying with the Socrates user group, if such a thing exists, or giving Clanwilliam a buzz directly.

Vorsprung

Socrates user group :D

That said, I've used H1 and God help me, I'll never willingly go back to it.

Breezer

Vorsprung wrote: »

Socrates user group :D

That said, I've used H1 and God help me, I'll never willingly go back to it.

You mean you don't get 10 emails a day from people who are, ahem, rather enthusiastic about the software they use all day at work?

Which in fairness is very useful when there's a problem.