Many patients will phone through to reception, even if they have heard your welcome message advising them to use askmyGP.

A useful way to help them there is to send a text message to their mobile phone containing the link to your own askmyGP welcome page.

Reception can then say to the patient, “To help you get started, can I send you a link by text message?”

Set up and test a preset in advance, something like this

“Please use the askmyGP shortcut link to get help from your doctor https://my.askmygp.uk/?c=[your practice code]  You can also find askmyGP on our website [yourpracticewebsite.co.uk]  Regards [Your Practice Name]”

Make sure you put your own practice code, which you will find on your unique link.  This is normally your organisation code.  The patient can then simply click the link in their smartphone.

Note:  we do not advise that you broadcast a text to all your patients when you launch.  It tends to generate extra demand as even if only one in 50 patients create a request, that could double your volume in the opening days.  Better for them to find out one at a time when they need help.

PS  You may find when you test that in addition to the link, an email address is appended to the text.  If you click this it creates an email to the practice, which may not be monitored.  You might want to ask your IT department to remove this, as pateints should not send emails which will never be read.