Working through COVID-19
To ensure patients with time-critical needs get appropriate care, our Clinical Support Centre remains in operation. Please listen here to a short podcast from Sarah Taylor, our Head of Specialist and Practitioner Relations, on what this means for patients.
The service creates a digital triage route, supported by our third party healthcare providers, which offers direct access to remote primary and secondary assessment with diagnostics where appropriate.
If treatment cannot be safely delayed, we’ll source appropriate care now via the newly-established urgent and immediate care pathways put together by the public and private health systems.
If treatment can be delayed, then reports, diagnostics, scans and reviews will be saved on an electronic patient record ready for appropriate care when possible.
Members with a confirmed diagnosis, who are waiting for non-urgent, elective surgery, can also use the Clinical Support Centre to access ‘care while they wait’. This includes support for managing symptoms – for example, accessing pain relief or online physiotherapy.
Your questions
Q: What's happening as the illness COVID-19 progresses?
A: While the need for our Clinical Support Centre has diminished during the second half of 2020, we'll continue running this service until further notice. We'll monitor our members' access to, and demand for, in-person care to ensure we meet their needs in the best way for them.
Q: Who’s involved in this service?
A: We’re working with our existing digital healthcare third party providers, such as Doctor Care Anywhere and Healthcare Business Solutions UK, to combine direct access, remote primary triage and assessment with referral to remote secondary care. The clinicians involved at each stage have an existing relationship with our third party providers.
Q: Does this mean I can’t carry on my normal work with AXA Health patients?
A: We’d like to encourage you to carry on your private practice where possible. To support you we’ve authorised remote consultations. We know we'll see a decline in elective treatments this year, but we're committed to pre-authorising appropriate treatment now, and preparing to manage demand once private healthcare returns to normal.