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MNHQ

Babylon: GP at hand - all thoughts welcome

132 replies

MichaelMumsnet · 08/11/2018 11:16

Hi folks,

Mumsnet is looking to team up with Babylon to promote their free NHS "GP at hand" service (available to people living or working within 40 minutes of a GP at hand clinic) and Babylon’s paid online doctor (available to all UK residents).

Babylon offers both a free NHS and private 24/7 GP service, which lets members have virtual doctor’s appointments from their mobile, arrange prescriptions for local collection and get specialist referrals.

To get the service for free, you need to live or work within 40 minutes of a GP at hand clinic and switch your registered NHS GP practice to GP at hand, Babylon’s NHS offering. When you register for GP at hand, you will be de-registered from your current GP practice. If you’d prefer to stay with your current GP, you can use the Babylon service on a pay as you go or subscription basis for quick, easy access to doctors anytime.

If you’re not sure whether you need to see a doctor, Babylon offers an AI symptom checker which you can access for free via their app. The app also has a handy tool called Healthcheck, which creates a free health report for you and suggests changes you can make to live a healthier lifestyle.

We think these services could be genuinely useful to parents (and non-parents) and we'd love to know what you think too – all thoughts and comments gratefully received!

MNHQ

OP posts:
Ribeebie · 10/11/2018 12:21

As PPs have said this is a deeply flawed system and is not proven to be safe. There are serious concerns about GP at hand and this is outlined in this month's lancet article. Please don't do this.
In addition it is also threatening the security of other GP surgeries who are left with complex or elderly patients (anyone who is basically not a young healthy person) with far less money.
There is a BBC documentary about GP at hand on iPlayer at the moment which highlights the issues.

Isthereeveranexcuse · 10/11/2018 12:17

bore thanks for those links.

Isthereeveranexcuse · 10/11/2018 12:13

Really bad idea. Undermining proper NHS GP services and the online thing would worry me in terms of getting stuff wrong.

plus, the actual real life GPs that you can see with this crowd are London Centric.

Really really bad idea and I'm disappointed to see mumsnet getting into bed with this type of organisation.

BoreOfWhabylon · 10/11/2018 12:09

Please don't do this. For the reasons stated above.

This is a deeply flawed product, which is not supporting the NHS in any way but is undermining it.

Milliways · 09/11/2018 08:50

If they cream off all the “easy” patients who register near their work (and don’t appreciate that when they are ill and at home they are no longer registered with their local to home GP) then the local GPs will lose a lot of funding and find it hard to provide services for the elderly and complex patients they are left with.
They also push a lot of extra paid services for quick appts etc, so it’s not all Free NHS services either.

Fleabag123 · 08/11/2018 23:39

The AI symptom checker is deeply flawed - look at @DrMurphy11on Twitter. He has done lots of testing with barn door symptoms of emergency presentation (heart attack/ PE / DVT) - all hopelessly mistriaged.
He tried it with a simple nosebleed and got questions about erectile function??!!
Also it is very difficult to manage illnesses in children via a “virtual” appointment and I absolutely would not trust any doctor who is willing to prescribe having not seen or examined an acutely unwell child

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