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Book your doctor via TV
Thousands of people across the UK can now book a doctor's appointment using their digital TV
The service has been made available around the country following the success of a pilot project in the north of England.
Patients at 1,100 participating surgeries get access to the same system used by doctor's receptionists to make appointments.
Using their TV remote, the patient can book, amend or cancel an appointment in real time. Plans for the service include offering repeat prescriptions.
The service has been available online and via mobile phone for some months. But the idea is to bridge the digital divide by finding alternative ways to open up the service to more people.
Digital TV services are taking off as people gain access via cable, Sky and Freeview. This will increase as the process of switching off the analogue signal used for broadcasting begins in earnest next year. The full digital switch-over to digital will take place in 2012, TV region by TV region.
People who have cable, Freeview or Sky can access the service via the Looking Local portal on DigiTV, a not-for-profit service owned and run by Kirklees council on behalf of local government. This portal also gives access to other services, such as the Jobcentre Plus database.
Patients can sign up for the booking service via their doctor's surgery, which hands out access and individual password information. However, the surgery must be a customer of IT firm Emis, which runs the service and hosts more than 39 million electronic patient records for GPs. Patients should also check to see if their surgery has agreed to take part in the online or DigiTV scheme.
This article was created: 13 August 2007.
This article was last edited: 21 August 2007.
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