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Manually typing a message

When sending messages to patients you can either manually type a message, or pick one from a list.

Patients are notified about your message by email as default. If your CCG have enabled our SMS module, when you click 'Send as SMS' patients will also be sent an SMS notification in addition to the email.

When manually typing a message, you have the choice of the message being:

  • Reply required: patients can respond to your message.
  • Reply not required: patients can acknowledge your message.

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Attaching images and documents

You can also attach images and documents to your messages by clicking this button Screenshot_2021-02-13_at_13.50.23.png on the left. Only png, jpg, jpeg, and pdf files can be attached allowed with a maximum file size of 5mb. 

What do patients see when you send them a manually typed message?

If you send a reply required message, this is what the patient sees:
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They can type their response and press submit. 

If you send a reply not required message, this is what the patient sees:

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They can only click Mark as read to acknowledge they have seen your message.

Patients see one message at a time

We don't advise asking multiple questions or sending multiple bits of information in one message, because patients may miss them. Instead, you should send multiple messages to patients one after the other. Patients are shown the next message in sequence after they have responded to or acknowledged the first one. This is for safety reasons, to ensure patients can reply to every question you ask, and acknowledge every bit of advice you send them.

Therefore it’s important to only send messages as ‘Reply required’ if you actually need a response from the patient. Because if the patient doesn’t reply, they won’t see any messages you sent afterwards.

However, you may have noticed that there's a countdown in the bottom left of the images above that tells them how many messages they have left to view.
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Finishing a request with unanswered 'reply required' messages

If you click the 'Finish' button where the patient has not answered all the questions you have asked them, it will be sent to the 'Awaiting response' inbox. When the patient replies, it will go back into the 'Unassigned' inbox (this is in case the patient responds on a day you are not working). This feature is useful if you want to clear your inbox without closing requests.