- Quickest way to get an appointment
- No need to hang on the phone or come to the surgery
- Each eConsult is triaged by a GP – NOT an admin person
- Allows us to better understand your needs
- You get the right care, right time, in right place – what you clinically need.
- Greater accessibility to appointments
- Safe
- Frees up the phone lines
We don’t always know what is wrong with us, which is why we go to the doctors. By submitting an eConsult you give your doctors all the information they need to decide on the right care for you and your family.
eConsult is a clever bit of software that allows you to quickly and safely get help and advice from us, for free, from anywhere. It is a form-based online consultation & triage platform that collects your medical, or administrative request, and sends it through to us to triage and decide on the right care for you and everyone else.
eConsult allows us to better understand the needs of you, the patient. By collecting rich, safe and structured patient information, we can better support you to get the right care at the right time and in the right place. To give you what you need, which may differ from what you want.
By submitting an eConsult your doctors can make sure every patient gets the right care, saving appointments for those that need them. If you can use eConsult it means you free up the phone line for those who are not able to use the internet.
eConsult is available to use from any device connected to the internet. There is no need to wait in a phone queue or visit the practice. It takes just 3-4 minutes to complete an eConsult and we will get back to you within 2 working days, if not sooner. When our physical doors are closed, our digital doors are open Sunday evening through to close of play Friday.
eConsult is safe to use. There is a red-flagging system that directs to more critical care if needed. eConsults are also saved onto your records so they can be referred back to at any time in the future.
In 2023, London Lane Clinic patients submitted 18,722 eConsults. Every one of them was triaged by a GP. Without an online tool such as eConsult, this number of contacts with the surgery would not have been possible.
FAQs
We do know that some patients do not like eConsults. Below are answers to the three most frequent comments we get:
- eConsults take too long to complete
eConsult is not a simple free text box where you request an appointment. It is a digital triage tool that collects a detailed patient history so we can accurately determine the right care for each patient. The questionnaire changes in real-time based on your previous answers, following the same kind of questions you would be asked in an appointment. It may seem repetitive but spending a little longer to complete an eConsult, could save you more time later on.
After your eConsult has been triaged by a GP, you will be given the most appropriate care. It maybe that you don’t actually see a GP as it is more appropriate for you to see someone else such as a clinical pharmacist or go to your local pharmacy. You will be given the care that you actually need rather than what you feel you want.
- What about patients who cannot use eConsult?
eConsult is not for every patient. Of course there are some patients who cannot use eConsult and that is fine. Those that cannot use eConsult, can call the surgery or come into the surgery and a receptionist will offer to do an eConsult Lite. They will then go through a shortened version of the eConsult form so that it can be submitted for triaging.
We encourage all those patients that can use online to do so so that it frees up other contact options for patients who can’t use online.
eConsults stops me getting a face to face appointment
Submitting an eConsult does NOT exclude you from getting a face to face appointment. When triaging an eConsult, if the GP feels that a face to face appointment is required, then a face to face appointment will be arranged accordingly.
- The pandemic is over. Why is LLC still using eConsult?
London Lane Clinic is working towards the NHS England Modern general practice model.
This model is a way of organising work in general practice that enables practices to:
- provide inclusive, straightforward online and telephone access
- understand all need through structured information gathering
- prioritise and allocate need safely and equitably (including continuity of care)
- make best use of other primary care services and the multi-professional team
- improve the efficiency of their processes and reduce duplication.
eConsult is an integral part of this model so whilst the pandemic is over, eConsult is here to stay.
London Lane Clinic was in fact an early adopter of online access and consultations. This early adoption meant that we were in good stead when NHS England issued the ways of working in a pandemic. Its usage enabled London Lane Clinic to remain open during all the lockdowns – we did not shut. In conjunction with increased use of telephony and video calls, GPs “saw” patients. Although the physical doors were closed for patient and staff safety, the virtual doors were well and truly open.
If the waiting room is empty, it does not mean there are no appointments. It means that those with face to face appointments are with the clinician in their appointments.