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Summary of customisable options for GP practices
Most of these customisations can be enabled by contacting our support team via live chat or email (practice.support@econsult.health) any day of the week between 8am and 8 pm. We are working to make more of these self-service options.
Customisations that impact the patient experience
Feature | What is it? | How to customise |
Choose to allow submissions on behalf of patients e.g. by family or carers. By default, these are allowed. | Via Support team | |
Choose to ask patients if they want a response from a specific person (by name, e.g. named GP). By default, this question is not asked. | Via Support team | |
Choose to ask patients questions about drinking and smoking habits. By default, these are asked. | Via Support team | |
Choose to ask patients additional questions about their health (e.g. breastfeeding/pregnancy or an allergy question). By default, these are asked. | Via Support team | |
Choose to ask patients to provide their ethnicity. | Via Support team |
Customisations that impact your practice or clinical management
Feature | What is it? | How to customise |
Add local self-referral options to templates. | Via Support team | |
Close eConsults at certain times e.g. on weekends. By default, eConsults are available 24/7. | Self-service via DM settings | |
Set daily limits on the number of eConsults. By default, no cap is set. | Self-service via DM settings | |
Choose to allow reviews to be submitted at any time. By default, only allowed when the practice accepts eConsults. | Via Support team | |
Choose to allow eConsult submissions for patients under the age of 16. By default, these are allowed. | Via Support team | |
Choose to show the travel advice template for your practice. By default, this is shown. | Via Support team | |
Create and use custom responses after an eConsult. Accessible via the Smart Inbox | Via Smart Inbox |
More detail on available customisations
Self-referral to local services
Add custom local self-referral services to consultation groupings or individual clinical templates e.g. all templates in the 'Limb and Joint Problem' group or specific templates such as 'Back Problem' or 'Knee Problem'. Find out more and set up your local services.
Demand - Consultation hours
See your current consultation hours or amend the times when your practice allows patients to submit eConsults. Find out more about setting your consultation hours.
Demand - Capping
Set a limit on the number of eConsults your practice can receive for every day of the week. Find out more about capping.
Review template submissions
Our clinical review templates should be sent by the practice to patients who require reviews for the management of their long-term conditions. They allow patients to provide information ahead of or instead of their review appointment. By default, the submission of these reviews is only allowed when the practice is accepting other types of eConsult. However, your practice can choose to allow these to be submitted 24/7 for a better patient experience. Find out more about our clinical review templates.
Proxy submissions
Your practice can decide whether or not to allow proxy submissions (i.e. on behalf of 'someone else'). If allowed, a question will be asked at the beginning to get information from the submitter as well as about the patient. Practices will be notified this is a proxy submission and will be able to reply to either the proxy submitter or the patient. Find out more about proxy submissions.
Please note that submissions for a child are customisable under Paediatric templates.
Named person question
The ability for a practice to decide whether or not patients are asked if they would like help from a particular person at the surgery. It is made clear to patients that this is not always possible to fulfil.
QOF questions
The ability for practices to not ask patients questions about their alcohol and smoking habits. These questions are shown by default for practices in England and Wales, although this can be turned off. These questions are not shown for practices in Scotland.
Your health questions
Ability to decide if you want to ask patients additional allergy or pregnancy questions as part of eConsults.
Ethnicity question
The ability for a practice to ask patients to describe their ethnic group or background.
Paediatric templates
Parents or guardians are able to complete certain condition templates for children under the age of 16. These are turned on for practices by default but can be turned off. Find out more about our paediatric templates.
Travel advice template
You are able to hide the travel advice template if your practice does not want patients to be able to complete it, please note we are unable to switch this template off from the NHS App, but the number of submissions should be reduced.
Custom responses
We know there is a strong desire to be able to write and save your own response messages to send to patients after an eConsult. You are now able to create and save your own message templates in the Smart Inbox. Find out more about messaging in the Smart Inbox.
If you have any questions or you feel that this article could be improved, please feel free to give us some feedback by emailing us, pressing the emojis below or using the chat button on the bottom right-hand side of this page to speak to one of the eConsult team.