Emailing Consultants (NHS)

[ChimChimChiroo]

Does anyone find it totally inappropriate for a patient to obtain a Consultant or other medical professionals email and email them without prior consent?

What do you think about recording consultations- it seems very common now?

It’s pretty easy to guess an email. Patient is unlikely to get an answer unless email contact has been previously agreed.

It’s fine. 🤷🏻‍♀️ I mean, personally it’s more expedient to go through consultant’s secretaries because they do a lot of the behind the scenes making things happen and can triage the enquiry so it gets handled by the appropriate person (who may not be the consultant). But I email my consultant (via his secretary) all the time. It’s much more helpful because I can explain exactly what’s going on, which attaches right to my record and I can send photos. I saw my consultant yesterday and he thanked me for doing so because it meant he could pick up an issue and get it dealt with.

Recording has long been a done thing because some people struggle cognitively to process lots of technical information, especially if they have no family support at the consultation. Not something I personally do, but fine as long as you ask permission. I have had consultants audio record consultations themselves for transcription into my record.

I felt it was always considered a total NO NO to email and pretty rude and the general consensus at work is its a NO. Just wondered what everyone thought.

I dont mind the recording. Many colleagues still say NO … that is IF they are asked. You can often tell someone is secretly recording. It used to be occasionally now its very frequent.

times have changed!

ty for commenting

Emailing- without prior agreement? No.
Recording a consultation- policy is that it’s allowed. Only an issue if patient uses to recording for anything other than personal use. Recording appointments for transcription onto EPR is quite different IMO, means the clinician can focus on patient rather than trying to type and listen, not everyone can touch type.

I don't mind recording. Just saying you are happy with it generally eases the atmosphere straight away.

Emailing - an absolute no. Yes a lot of nhs emails are very very guessable. However in most jobs now emails go to a pooled team or secretary email to prevent urgent emails being ignored for days while the recipient is off work. And to protect recipients from being harrassed by frequent emails.

We don't give out personal mobile numbers for the same reason - everything goes to a team phone. Back in the day when we did give them out someone came back to work after a few weeks and found a voicemail from a critically ill patient asking for urgent assessment which had just sat in their voicemail.

I think it’s rude on the consultant’s part if there isn’t some kind of email given out to the patient, doesn’t have to be a personal email; could be a team or secretary’s email.

I don’t think it’s any more rude to email a consultant than any other professional. They’re doctors, not gods.