Bigger and Better
Official welcome to Q doctor
Over the last 12 months, eConsult has hit a series of major milestones, including being the platform of choice for over 3,300 GP surgeries, patients submitting over 14 million eConsults and securing a £7M investment to help us scale and continue to improve our products. Today we are thrilled to announce another: the acquisition of Q doctor.
I am honoured to welcome Q doctor, its team and its founder – my friend and decorated physician Dr Chris Whittle – to the eConsult Health family. Although we are formalising our relationship today, our businesses have worked closely together over the last eighteen months to serve GP practices across the UK.
Better Together – A Market First
Together, we combine a unique and better solution for our primary and secondary care customers. eConsult’s leading digital triage platform and Q doctor’s video, telephone and SMS capabilities creates a new ‘one-stop’ solution for GPs, surgeries and hospitals.
I am thrilled we can offer this seamless experience for our existing and new customers.
This helps GP practices and hospitals to more effectively manage patient requests, interactions and work more efficiently. Doctors are under more pressure than ever before so working smart is critical to be able to meet and deliver against demand.
Combined Clinical Expertise
Chris, myself and the founders of eConsult, set up our businesses as working NHS doctors. We remain deeply committed to the principles of the highest quality, safe and effective care. Both companies lead with in-depth clinical expertise and robust clinical governance at our core.
We also share the vision of transforming the way healthcare is delivered and taking our triage and video expertise into secondary care. eConsult’s eTriage platform, purpose-built for urgent and emergency care, is growing in popularity and is currently in use at nine hospitals including Worthing & St Richards in Western Sussex. Similarly, Q doctor has gained a foothold in urgent and emergency and outpatient care at sites across the UK including the STP wide contract in Lincolnshire.
Better for Customers
We are already live in over 3,300 surgeries nationwide, who will now have access to enhanced functionality including click to call, and soon, SMS and a new and improved toolbar. In the coming months, we look forward to sharing more details of our exciting product development plans.
eConsult has big ambitions to transform the future of digital health in a way that will benefit the NHS, its doctors, nurses, administrators and patients. Bringing Q doctor into our family is another important step on that journey. Watch this space: there’s plenty more to come.
Best wishes
Dr Murray Ellender, CEO eConsult Health
Want to find out more? Speak to our team
FAQs
eConsult Health has acquired Q doctor, bringing digital triage, video and SMS together in a single platform for primary and secondary care. This is a first in the digital health market and represents a significant milestone. We received £7m in funding at the end of 2020 to grow and also expand into secondary care. This forms a core part of our ongoing growth and ties into our long term strategy.
We’ve already been working collaboratively since March 2020 and it’s a natural progression for us to combine and bring together the expertise, strong clinical background and technical and industry knowledge that have helped us to grow so far. Our products and services aim to fulfil the same goal: provide patients with faster access to the right person through triage, and enhance operational flow by creating efficiencies for the NHS that we were both born from.
Together, we now provide a market-leading, seamless patient experience, both underpinned by clinical excellence and safety records. Working more closely together will help us to embed digital solutions firmly into the heart of practice and patient care across the NHS.
At present your terms & conditions will remain the same. If there is a change to this, we’ll be in touch with you.
There won’t be any changes for existing eConsult Health customers and they will continue to be able to access all the features available within their existing contracts at no additional cost. If there is a change to this, we’ll be in touch with you.
Both eConsult Health and Q doctor adhere to all of the NHS data security standards – you can find out more about our data security here.