Photo by Unseen Studio on Unsplash
I’ve finally decided to do something about the GP surgery and the imminent lack of one. I think the doors finally close in April, after it was decided that more than enough alternatives were available to those registered with Westbourne Grove Medical Centre.
I’m not sure if we’re just cut adrift if we choose not to act, or whether the NHS mothership, automatically steps in and assigns a new home?
We decided not to leave it to chance. Mrs H. informed me that her wheels were in motion with our preferred option, which was enough of a giddy-up for me to stop procrastinating further.
I popped into the new surgery to ask for direction - what was the easiest pain-free way to register? It turned out it didn’t matter. I could fill out a printed form or visit the GP’s web site, the information needed was the same.
The web site is an NHS template which the Pembridge Villas Surgery shoehorns into. Registration is under the How Do I? menu, although having checked again, I found a link on the homepage, which is where it ought to be, given it’s a common request.
Online form filling is often made easier, especially for shoppers, by allowing pre-population of your vital information. I use a password app which often fills the usual boxes instantly. Not, alas, on this occasion.
As I was tapping away, my eye was drawn to the universal, accept our cookies, which was taking up valuable screen space. I dismissed it with a yes, only to find that my personal details had gone and the form returned blank. Technically, my acceptance of cookies had refreshed the page, which is poor design and frustrating for me.
The information required is a combination of who, where, history and what ails you, if anything, organised using a gated system of screens. The rule is simple - though shall not pass (to the next screen) until the form is correctly populated. I failed, for instance, to get past screen one until spaces were removed from my mobile number.
This design technique appears to be de rigueur for other British government web sites too. Perhaps they’ve all been on a user experience course, how to make forms fun?
If there is a benefit to this approach, it at least makes the form-filler feel like they’re locking in information, proceeding as planned as each gate is passed, like levels in a game.
The last page seemed to be a formality, one or two tick boxes and a submit button. Except it wasn’t.
A message appeared stating that my form could not be accepted as this time and I should contact technical support. No reason why, no phone number, no email, just the statement and an instruction I couldn’t fulfil.
I phoned the receptionist who I’d spoken to earlier, where we agreed pretty quickly and calmly on my part, that she wasn’t technical support and had no idea that one even existed. She invited me back to the surgery to pick-up a form.
Phoenix Life
A while I go, I was contacted by Phoenix Life. It came in the post. I ignored the first letter, a combination of my scepticism, scam alertness and concluding that I couldn’t possibly own a financial investment which I’d since forgotten about.
Three months later, they tried again. This time they gave me a clue. I gave it more thought and decided it probably wasn’t a scam and called them. If nothing else, they could stop sending further letters.
It turned out that I had indeed started an investment policy with Cornhill Insurance in my twenties. I stopped paying into it several years after I started. Probably just about enough time to make sure the salesperson got his commission.
Phoenix Life seemed very keen to send me the surrender form by post, but a little persistence revealed that it could indeed be sent immediately by email.
I still had to print the form out, complete it by hand, scan it, before sending back.
They insisted on using some secure email software called Forcepoint, powered by Raytheon, a US corporation better remembered, I expect, for being an aerospace and defence conglomerate than a competitor to Microsoft.
I uploaded the scanned document to the weaponised email software, with a brief note and pressed send. All seemed fine, but there was no response.
A couple of weeks later I decided to try again and sent another heat-seeking email having eventually put the phone down after 30 minutes of uninspiring music and no dialogue. Again, no response. My email appeared to be firing blanks.
I tried phoning at a different time of day and finally spoke with someone, who passed me onto the right department. They were helpful and stayed on the phone, while I sent an email without the assistance of Forcepoint. They acknowledged receipt with the attached document, which with the benefit of hindsight, would have been sorted weeks ago if I’d just used their pre-paid envelope. The form filling, after-all, had been identical.
I’d been seduced by the idea of improved efficiency and security, avoiding the wonderful but occasionally disrupted services of Royal Mail.
I sense that Phoenix Life’s target audience are mostly customers with a history of pen and paper, envelopes in the post, which is why I was pushed in that direction.
It begs the question does anyone check the mail, the electronic one?
Success
I’m officially a patient with a home again. I notice I’m referenced as a patient, not a customer, signed-up at Pembridge Villas with a new group of 6 GPs.
Given that the receptionist had kindly offered me a form and a pen if I’d asked, it’s interesting that their first three communications were via email, with headlines like portal access, online services account ID and online service passphrase.
It appears that the new surgery expects a certain level of digital proficency, even though most of a certain age would have given up on that medical web form or avoided it entirely. I expect the GP’s target audience must be quite similar to Phoenix Life’s. Perhaps the difference is the insurance company can afford to do business over the phone?
While you might be welcomed without using a browser, if you want access to the functionality of the GP’s portal, then you need to learn how to use it, or persuade a loving relative to do your inter-web bidding for you. The alternative is to queue on the phone or visit in person, an action which is unlikely to receive much encouragement from the practice. We’re being pushed online for a reason. It makes perfect sense to make the patient as self sufficient as possible, accessing the services needed without requiring additional administrative resource.
This is exactly the same business model as not on the high street banks, like Starling and Monza have adopted. Let the tech do the heavy lifting.
I hadn’t used First Direct’s telephone banking service for years when I finally closed my account. The app experience of Starling was better and it came without oil exploration investments. Form-based transactions are satisfying because we’re in control with the freedom to act whenever we want. No need for a baby-sitter.
Perhaps I’m just beginning to behave like my digitally native children, where conversation doesn’t have to include a phone conversation?
I share your frustrations regarding on line forms. I ‘found’ some shares I was allocated when Google bought Motorola in 2012. They were worth quite a bit so I decided to sell them. Not so easy. I had to go on to US dealing site and enter my details. Including my Motorola employee number from 11 years ago. Long story short, after many frustrating phone calls to the US they gave me my employee number. Back to the website, form filled in correctly, but rejected due to invalid email address. They wanted to use my Motorola email address for validation. More phone calls resulting in a secure email to my personal email address. The only problem was, it expired after 8 hours and took over 12 hours to get to me. The phone call saga continues. In Product development one of the key factors is building a great customer experience. Many of these on line experiences obviously forget about this.
I feel your pain - have been there numerous times!