The twenty first century has seen the creation of many amazing technological feats! We are focusing on the creation of online GP consultations with highly skilled GMC registered General Practitioners. In this article we look into the positive contribution this service offers and how you can benefit from it.
With the successful unveiling of the alldayDr Health and Wellness Kiosk at Euro Garage in Blackburn by special guests Ron Hill, marathon legend and Mohammad Ayub, the Mayor of Hyndburn. alldayDr are now planning to roll out their Health and Wellness Kiosks across the UK.
Let’s will get straight to the point, treatments while travelling abroad are expensive. I know this, you know this, we all know this. What we don’t know is how much it can cost us and how we can help prevent these substantial costs ruining holidays that should be relaxing and allow us to unwind. One of the ways this can be done is by carrying a GP in your pocket with app’s like alldayDr. If you can consult a British GP who understands you, your customs, and will give you the same level of care you are used to in the UK anytime when you are on holiday; how much peace of mind would that give you when you travel to a foreign country?
Spain is one of the most common travel destinations for the British population, with roughly 12 million British citizens travelling to the country every year. That is a staggering amount of people!
What you may not know is that the average doctor consultation in Spain will cost around £150. A pain killer prescription in Spain will also cost around £150, and if you get food poisoning you are looking at around £2,000 in medical bills. This is obviously not a cost you want to face on holiday or while travelling. (The cost of getting ill, 2018).
An online GP service can provide that added security you need while travelling abroad. We hope nobody should ever need it, but there are some situations where you fall ill on holiday and need to consult a GP.
I was recently in Malaga on holiday myself, I had a severe fever and throwing up green fluid right in the middle of my two weeks away. It was difficult to find a GP in my condition and with limited Spanish it made it even harder. I eventually found a doctor who would see me, but again the language barrier made it difficult to convey everything that was wrong with me. To top it all off, the service was below par and nothing I was used to expecting back at home. It was a nightmare experience and one I would not wish to go through again.
If I had a service like alldayDr, that gave me access to a British GP who was easy to communicate with; there would have been no concerns over a language barrier and receiving the service I expect. They would have access to my medical records to give me the most accurate diagnosis possible. I would not have had to torture myself leaving my apartment and searching for a GP in a city that I didn’t know.
A consultation from an online British GP service like this would give anyone the comfort and reassurance of having a quality standard of care. I now know that alldayDr can even send you an electronic prescription that you can cash in hassle free at any pharmacy abroad.
With apps like these, they are free to register and you can subscribe monthly or pay for a one-off consultation if and when you need it.
Conclusion
It is no secret that the NHS is facing some difficult issues that range from funding to staffing. These problems are putting a strain upon the service that they currently can’t handle. This is why there has been the need to develop other services to help aid the NHS like an online doctor service. In a previous article, we mentioned there were other backed schemes to relieve the pressure from GP practices.
In the previous article, it was clear that Online Doctor Consultations was the best solution; it incorporated all of the positives with the fewest drawbacks. In this feature we will explain all of the pro’s to an online doctor and why it is the solution needed to aid general practice.
An online doctor service like alldayDr can provide many positives such as:
alldayDr provides the ability to be seen by a GP within 15 minutes. This is because our doctors are readily available to work and because they work from private, remote locations. alldayDr can provide as many GP’s as they can to be available for consultations as they are not restricted by surgery size.
Online doctors can treat the vast majority of ailments that a standard GP can
Before we discuss the online GP consultation and why it is the most logical answer let us see the problems we are facing and why such technology is needed.
As a society, we are facing many issues regarding our National Health Service. The ageing population and growth of the general population, mixed with the declining number of GP’s is causing a shortage of available consultations. This increases pressure on our remaining GP’s.
This is not an unknown problem, but a developing one that the government and the NHS are trying to fix. In the meantime locum GP’s are the short term solution to plug the expanding holes in GP practices. General practice is facing an average increase in the workload of around 2.5% a year since 2007/8, taking into account both volume and acuity.
With the increasing demand for consultations; there have been several solutions that are being speculated to help decrease the pressures of GP consultations in the UK.
The first is online symptom checkers. Some practices have already put systems in place for potencial patients to check their basic symptoms online. This can determine if they need to come in for a face to face consultation with their GP. The purpose of this is to decrease the number of patients a practice needs to deal with.
Sadly for patients, the online symptom checker has some key flaws. The online symptom checker can’t accurately diagnose patients without a detailed description of their symptoms. Patients can exaggerate or leave out symptoms depending on their perception. Without accurate information, a symptom checker can give the wrong diagnosis.
The second solution is increasing the workforce of General Practitioners to supply the amount of GP consultations required to satisfy demand.
This is another solution that has been taken on by the government to produce an extra 5,000 GP’s by 2020. Sadly, none of the milestones or short term targets have been hit yet and the rate in which GP’s are leaving the industry is overtaking the amount of GP’s being trained to fill the unfilled vacancies.
The final solution is a combination of the two previously discussed “solutions”. The best of both worlds, combining technology with the knowledge of a GP. An online GP service is the most promising solution to the GP consultation crisis at the moment.
The concept is to book a time slot with a GP through an app or website. This will allow you to have a consultation from your home, work or anywhere of your choosing. This will cut out the need for home visits for GP’s freeing up more time for consultations. With more time to consult the need for an increased workforce is not as pressing. With the knowledge of a fully qualified and experienced GP performing the consultation, this is far more reliable than a symptom checker.
AllDayDr is such a service, providing effective and efficient face to face GP consultations upon the touch of an app from anywhere in the country. You can be prescribed medication that will be delivered to your doorstep or even prescribed a sick note. Get the full service of a GP practice from the AllDayDr app, for both Android and IOS
The twenty first century has seen the creation of many amazing technological feats! We are focusing on the creation of online GP consultations with... Read More...
Digital Health Education at Euro Garage With the successful unveiling of the alldayDr Health and Wellness Kiosk at Euro Garage in Blackburn by... Read More...
alldayDr, Every day, Anywhere! Let’s will get straight to the point, treatments while travelling abroad are expensive I know this, you know this,... Read More...
