Helping Secondary Care clinicians make the most of the Consultant Connect service

These pages have been created for NHS consultants, specialists and hospital teams in areas where Consultant Connect is available*. Each Consultant Connect project is fully managed by a dedicated Account Manager, from setup to launch to business-as-usual, supporting you and driving your project to success.

If Consultant Connect is not currently available in your area and you would like to find out more, please click here to contact us.

*Please note: Consultant Connect services and features available may differ by locality.

Why provide Advice & Guidance via Consultant Connect?

Primary Care clinicians refer fewer patients to hospital if they get timely specialist input first. Rapid Advice & Guidance gives them access to relevant advice and tools to manage more patients in Primary Care.

Key benefits

Helps prevent unnecessary referrals into secondary care

Providing Advice & Guidance to Primary Care clinicians increases hospital efficiency as you can advise on the most appropriate destination or outcome for the patient. This prevents unnecessary trips to hospital for patients and ensures you only see the patients you need to see.

Improves communication with Primary Care

Timely availability of specialist Advice & Guidance often enables Primary Care clinicians to improve and expedite the care of their patients. It is also a great opportunity for education and knowledge sharing between clinicians – if a patient presents to primary care with a similar condition in future, the clinician may feel confident in managing the patient without the need to seek specialist Advice & Guidance.

Only answer Advice & Guidance requests when you can

Consultant Connect is designed so that calls are routed through to a rota of available specialists. If you can’t answer, the call will automatically jump to the next available specialist.

Data captured ensures informed decision making

Consultant Connect provides valuable data regarding call volumes, length of calls and outcomes, as well as call recordings for medico-legal purposes. This data can be used to inform decisions within your team and also provides a valuable training tool. Consultant Connect data also fully integrates with NHSE reporting for Advice & Guidance and system EROC.

Adding your existing telephone lines or email/messaging groups to the system

If you already provide Telephone Advice & Guidance to Primary Care via local ‘on-call’ or ‘hot-week’ consultant lines, we can integrate your existing telephone line onto the system, giving you the ability to record the content of calls and benefit from access to rich data on call volumes and sources.

Similarly, if you already respond to written requests for Advice & Guidance, we can add the group to our system. We offer IG-secure Messaging Advice & Guidance. For clinicians seeking advice, they simply write a message and add attachments. Email and app notifications let hospital teams know when a message is received, and specialists can respond on the app or their desktop. All of this activity is tracked – numbers of cases per specialty, time to response, patient outcomes and more.

GP case study: Spinal Issues - Consultant Connect

Using Consultant Connect to contact healthcare professionals in your area

Secondary Care clinicians can use Consultant Connect to easily contact other clinicians across their hospital, at local GP practices or in the community. This pack provides an overview of all the services available via Consultant Connect, and is designed to provide Secondary Care teams with all the information needed to make the most from the Consultant Connect service.  

Getting started with the Consultant Connect App

Click the button below to sign in to Consultant Connect in your browser. If you have yet to sign up for the Consultant Connect service, watch our short ‘How to sign up’ video, click the button below, and follow the simple steps to sign up. Once you have created your login you can use the same credentials to download and use the Consultant Connect App (available via the App Store or Google Play).

Consultant Connect – Benefits for Secondary Care - Consultant Connect

Using Consultant Connect for shared patient care

Our Multidisciplinary Team service (MDT) provides an efficient and IG-secure way to manage multiple discussions about patients regardless of team locations. Team members can share messages and photos via the Consultant Connect App and in their browsers. Consultant Connect MDTs can comprise any combination of clinicians from one or more clinical disciplines or teams, who together make decisions regarding the recommended treatment of individual patients.

Virtual consultations (Patient Connect)

Clinicians use Patient Connect to deliver IG-secure virtual consultations. All data and call recordings are available via Consultant Connect in your browser.

Key benefits

Remote care

The service gives clinicans the ability to contribute significantly to patient care whilst working remotely or at home.

Call recordings

Calls are recorded for medico-legal purposes, and the call recordings are also being used to deliver appropriate training.

Right care, faster

This prevents unnecessary trips to hospital for patients and ensures you only see the patients you need to see.

     
Home - Consultant Connect

Patient-Initiated Follow-Ups (PIFU)

A follow-up service that enables patients to initiate an IG-secure virtual consultation with a specialist clinician. All data and call recordings are available via Consultant Connect in your browser.

Key benefits

Call recordings and reports

All calls are recorded and tracked. Clinicians can access call recordings and PID. Commissioners and administrators can access reports, including the outcome of calls, with all PID stripped out.

Helps meet the latest NHS Operational/Planning Guidance

Our PIFU service is already supporting areas meet the requirement of expanding the uptake of PIFU to all major outpatient specialties, reducing outpatient follow-up (OPFU) activity by 25% against the 2019/20 baseline by March 2024.

Telemedicine Devices

State-of-the-art virtual care devices allow NHS specialists to be fully available in the care of patients, without having to be physically at the bed side.

Key benefits

Remote care

The service gives clinicans the ability to contribute significantly to patient care whilst working remotely or at home.

Learning

Increases opportunity for learning from senior and specialist consultants.

Versatile device

Allowing for them to be effectively deployed over a range of healthcare settings – from neonatology to routine clinics, ensuring that you can maximise the effectiveness of your workforce.

     
What We Do - Consultant Connect
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Contact us

For more information about how we work with commissioners, hospitals and mental health trusts to improve patient care, please get in touch.

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