I learnt how to cheat e-consult over the 2024 disasters!

The trick is to answer every question with a positive. It’s a binary thing. AI bot can’t handle anything less. So it’s yes no , absolutely nothing else.

It’s like this:

Cough? No ( as if!)

Breathing ? Yes ( ish)

Broken Leg ? No

Covid? No

Headache ? No

Palpitations? No

Gambling? No

Smoking? No

Drinking No?

It goes on for pages and pages and is endlessly repetitive. It takes over 25 minutes to complete. Even in binary language. If you miss a question it chucks you into A and E!!

If you say a negative to anything it spits you out and tells you in big red letters to go to Aand E.

Using my knowledge gained over time I had contacted ( Thankyou AnneH) the hospital -at -home- respiratory -team. They answered. They could see my notes. They couldn’t understand why the GP had prescribed all the wrong meds doses and useless advice. 

They emailed the GP. 

But as we know that’s unlikely to work. ‘We don’t read emails. Can you imagine how many we get if we answered them we’d be so busy’

Respiratory Team advised me to back them up with Econsult and told me what I should request.

I filled in Econsult. I went down answerin: there was absolutely nothing wrong with me. I survived that and in the final text box added. Hospital. Respiratory Team. Urgent. See email. Need steroids high dose urgent. Need Doxycycline high dose urgent.

That generated a text from the surgery. Your message will be answered in the next 48 hours. 

Hours later I got a text from gp  with a link to the asthma charity advice line! 

However, in my top tips for patients I’m devising, I logged onto clunky NHS app.

There I could see …

Nothing helpful!

I nipped round to lovely chemist. Explained. 

He hacked into some system. Found the script dispensed it. 

Here we are 10 days later I can begin to breath again. Nothing from GP of course. Never mind.

The last PPG meeting I went to they said they’d had so many complaints about the econsult they’d be ditching it. They’ve now gone round to other gp surgeries to find out what THEY do! Errr innovation? Focus groups? How to upset your customers fast?

Do GPs actually see patients any more?