GP Services - How it works
Every call received by the Doctor On Duty control centre is of the utmost importance: Procedures are in place to handle all requests appropriately and speedily, whilst ensuring patients are well cared for.
When a patient makes a call to their General Practitioner's surgery, this call either goes through to the General Practitioner's own voicemail, where contact details for Doctor On Duty are given, or the call is redirected automatically to the offices of Doctor On Duty.
Our operator speaks with the patient whilst referring to the General Practitioner's dedicated file on our computer system for all pertinent information.
A phone call to Doctor On Duty does not necessarily result in a call-out, this depends on the prior instructions of the General Practitioner, which may be:
» Take a message for the General Practitioner
» Give out the General Practitioner's surgery timetable information
If a callout is required, our operator e-mails the symptoms and location details to the Doctor On Duty closest to the patient's address. This e-mail is received immediately on the doctor's PDA device. The doctor informs the control room when he has arrived at the patient's address and again when he has completed the call. Within minutes of his leaving the patient's home the doctor e-mails the diagnosis to the operator. This is immediately uploaded to the General Practitioner's dedicated password-protected zone on the Doctor On Duty website. General Practitioners without Internet access receive the same information by fax.
At the end of each month hard copies of the deputy's clinical notes are mailed to the General Practitioner.
All of this is made available to the General Practitioner for a modest monthly subscription. Private patients seen by Doctor On Duty are charged at the time of consultation. GMS fees in accordance with the guidelines of the Department of Health are recovered monthly from the patient's own General Practitioner .
Membership of the service also gives General Practitioners an entry in the list of General Practitioners, listed by location, on the Mediserve web directory.
How to contact Doctor On Duty:
Telephone: +353 (0)1 453 9333
Fax: +353 (0)1 408 5153
Email:
Address: Doctor on Duty, 344 South Circular Road, Dublin 8, Ireland.
General Practitioners:
If you would like to to become a subscribing member to the Doctor on Duty Service please click here.
