Doctor’s surgery is now using AI for appointments- not working

[Cnthnfne]

my GP surgery will now text a patient a form if they want an appoint. You need to fill in the form explaining why you need an appointment, it will be reviewed by a doctor and a receptionist will phone to arrange an appointment.
it is now not possible to book an appointment with a receptionist.
sent in a form early yesterday morning and I haven’t heard back. I will now need to phone them to chase up.
would take 3 mins under the old system. Plus, no allowances for people who don’t have mobile or don’t know how to use the internet: the elderly or the most vulnerable.

I don’t understand how anyone is meant to get an appointment if they work now. I want one to discuss HRT but the only possible way is to sit on phone at 8.30 and then if I get through before I start work at 8.45 I have to have phone on all day and be able to take call whenever it arrives. I can’t have my phone on at work and there is nowhere private to take a call even if I could answer.

That's not AI. That's an online form

AI would be if you had to enter info online and the AI program then determined what your condition was, how urgent it was, etc. No human would be involved, the AI program would be responsible for decision-making. I fully expect this will happen eventually.

Our surgery currently has a ring at 8.00 a.m. policy for a same day appointment, or use the online triage system (not too many questions) and a GP will look at your form and decide whether you need an urgent appointment, or a phone call later, etc. I feel it works better than the phone call only scenario where you just had to keep hanging on the phone then all the appointments would be gone by the time you got through, if you actually did!

My surgery uses e-consult if you can't get through on the phone during very limited times. And reception will not book an appointment for you.

It is shit. Slow, clunky, you have to keep repeating the same answers. I filled my last one in and when I did get a reply a day or so later it did not really meet what my request was about.

If you wanted to design a system to keep away those most in need ie the elderly, I challenge you to come up with a better one than this.

And yes, I know not all older people are incapable of using smartphones and other devices, but very many are - digital exclusion is a real problem and gets worse all the time. My parents are in their 80s and would not be able to use this kind of system. They have tried going to the GP surgery at 8am sharp to get an appointment, only to be turned away.

See also adults with learning disabilities, others with literacy problems, those who don't speak English well, etc.

In what way is this AI?

I can understand why people don’t like it but I love it - though I am probably lucky.

I recently had the dreaded lurgy that’s been going around but my nose had been permanently blocked and sore etc for 12 days, with no sign of it letting up. I filled the form in at 9:30 one day (hoping, but not expecting, help as thought they’d say it was a virus still) got a call from reception to say a doc would phone me at lunch time ish. I then got a call just after 11:00, spoke to the doc and had antibiotics sent over to the pharmacy straightaway.

I’ve also used it when I’ve had issues with acne, a question about the HRT they’d given and when I had a boil that also needed antibiotics a few years ago.

Sounds like econsult. Works brilliantly takes only a few minutes to fill in and usually get reply the same day, next day if routine non urgent, those with no internet etc can still phone in but they'll have to wait in phone queue.

When you filled it in it would have said how long to expect a reply or receipt email saying how long to expect reply?

I was in our surgery yesterday and saw how this system excludes others first hand - two elderly people came in separately, one very unsteady on her feet, to say they didn’t have phones or tech to book appointments. One had got a neighbour to fill in the online form re a blood test but it was confirmed by the receptionist the link to book had been sent to her home phone number, which was ridiculous. The other wanted an appointment for his wife who has cancer. He was very upset about leaving her at home alone to come to the surgery.
These are the kind of people who are being excluded by the system but are the ones who need access the most.
What also amazes me is that I was the only person in the waiting room in a practice with 7 doctors! Where are all the patients and what are the doctors doing?

We’ve had this system for a number of years at our practice. It’s not perfect but I think it works better than the old system of call bang on 8am. Wait on hold for over an hour to then get through and be told there’s no appointments left and try again tomorrow and repeat.
This way usually the form gets reviewed either that day or the next day and you get allocated an appointment or a telephone appointment. Sometimes just a text with medications to collect from the pharmacy

So essentially they are discriminating based on literacy. Illiterate people don’t deserve healthcare, apparently.
I would be kicking up a storm about this.

I much prefer it. I used to spend hours trying to get through. For my last appointment I sent the online form explaining my issue and asking to see someone with an interest in the subject. I put what times were OK/really didn't work for me and got a message back same day with a suitable appointment. Saw a lovely GP who really was knowledgeable on my issue, where previously I'd felt a bit dismissed.

If it's taking a really long time to get back to you, that's the surgery, not the system.

Yes, it is harder for those without tech (who may indeed represent some of the most vulnerable people).

But the practices know who such patients are, and will have work-arounds for them, but these will not be available to those who can access the online system.

My practice has hybrid. Online available, but you can still ring if you want to.

I like the e consult form but I when I became ill with what turned out to be severe depression and anxiety I couldn't do the form, I tried several times and just couldn't get my brain to work. The receptionist after speaking to me said she was happy to do it but would need to ask me some very personal questions, was that ok. I was barely coherent by this time and said yes. She was fabulous, she did the form and then said as the form states, someone will contact you within 48 hours. I said that was fine but the gp phoned me within 10 minutes, I suspect the receptionist had escalated my form. As previous posters have said there are occasions where you have to go back a couple of pages otherwise you can't progress because the form says call for an ambulance but in the main for us it's a 100% better than hanging on the phone at 8am.

This is an eConsult, not AI (generally AI cannot be used for any clinical decision making without review by a real person). It’s just an online form. My surgery has been using it for years. For us, it’s fab and much more efficient than waiting on hold for an hour to speak to a receptionist. We get a text or call back from a nurse or doctor by end of day. And it frees up the phone lines for people who need to ring because they can’t use the online system for whatever reason.

This works really well at my gp surgery and my elderly DMs. 2-3 mins to fill out an online form rather than try and get through by phone. We've had urgent issues dealt with on the day and non urgent issues offered an appointment within a week. Local Facebook groups are ranting about how ridiculous it is without even using it

I gave up with trying to see my local GP and have used the NHS app, Livi, to book appointments.

I’ve been able to see someone the same day from the comfort of my own home, with prescriptions issued immediately.

It was pretty intuitive/user friendly, didn’t feel rushed etc

I think you mean ‘automation’ not AI.

Our doctors practice has been using this system for about 5 years. It has worked fairly well for us in all but one case when someone misinterpreted what was required.

If its anything serious they usually get you in pretty sharpish.

They don’t have enough GP’s or enough money to deal with the demands on the NHS so have deemed this the best way of triaging and prioritising the very few appointments available to maximise resources. Although far from ideal for anyone not IT savvy.

Received a phone call from the receptionist at 9am informing me that a doctor will phone around 2pm to check when I need an appointment.
so instead of a simple call its now 1 form and 2 phones before I get an appointment.

For those saying ‘this isn’t AI’, the company am against this scheme calls it AI

that isn't ai

I definitely much prefer filling in an eConsult than having to ring up at 8am and wait to get through, especially when it's non-urgent. I switched GP practices recently as my old one was a 'call at 8am and good luck with that' (the receptionist said this!) type place, my new one uses eConsult and it's so much better.

The company rolling out this scheme calls it AI. I am assuming the long term aim would be replace the human reviewing the request with an AI tool.

This is no AI.

Our doctors do this system too and I’ve used it and it’s been really good. I got a text for a phone call that day.