Babylon Health Omdömen 151

Once again, I sat waiting for my appointment. Nobody turns up. 20 minutes after the due time, my appointment is cancelled. This was after the doctor due to provide the appointment changed twice. Now moved 3 weeks down the line. The stress of dealing with EMed has made me more unwell.

And now a standard response from EMed below. My appointments have been cancelled on multiple occasions in fact, and always after the appointment was due. Never book a weekend appointment, they are much more likely to be cancelled and I’m speaking from experience.

Though things are not quite yet resolved, my issues have so far been courteously dealt with by Sam. I’m hopeful things will resolve themselves over the next few days.

The service is just getting worse and worse. As if it wasn’t already bad enough, you can now not book a GP appointment yourself via the app without being invited to after being forced to make an appointment with somebody who can’t help first- which also can’t be done quickly.

I have never had an appointment with an advanced nurse practitioner or a pharmacist who has been able to help me. Never. Every, single time they have said that I need to make an appointment with a GP.

I have just gone to book and there were only two appointments showing for three weeks time, which is too long. I refreshed and both those appointments have gone and now it’s just saying that there are none available whatsoever. Even if I were to get one, it would be a 50-50 chance of it being cancelled at the last second. All this for a 15 minute call. What am I paying for?!!!

Update: It is eMed. I pay and am invoiced by eMed.

They cancelled my appointment last night for no reason now l have to re-book, next morning from 8am until 12pm by phone nobody picks up so l use the app it said 15 mins it got down to 5 mins then went back up to 12 mins l got down to 1 min goes back up to 5 mins it done this for maybe 2 hours ? l don't have a choice l cant travel l still have not got through to them l cant take anymore

I don’t think the staff here realise what field they’re in - they’re about as casual as a school kid on Saturday job. Perhaps they only employ new school leavers? Maybe it’s a child labour camp? I can’t think as to any other reason why a medical company would act with such negligence and distain for their service users.

It’s hard enough to advocate for one’s self in this medical minefield without having to enter the labyrinth of emed.

As I’m writing this review my appointment has been cancelled and no further explanation given. I waited two weeks for an appointment purely to get a referral for it to be cancelled 10 minutes after the allocated start time.

And to Matt Noble, the person whose name is always on those anger inducing emails - find a new ‘disruptive’ way to better the health system, instead of causing a decline in service just to encourage private medical customers.

Keeps saying we will refund you, we’ll get on with it been weeks and no one to speak on phone will have to do a credit card chargeback.

An absolute waste of time. When I first registered with them they were ok but now they’re completely useless. They kept me waiting on their chat app for almost 2 hours just to tell me to make an appointment. I’m going back to my local GP.

Absolute joke of a company, Tried to contact customer services multiple times they charged me hundreds of pounds which now I'm having to dispute with my bank because they won't respond and they didn't even send me the product that they charged me for

I asked for support that they couldn't arrange. Was then told, if I left the practice as an NHS patient, and rejoined as a paying patient, my care would be prioritised.
Disgusting. Unethical. Should not be allowed to practice in this way.

I've submitted a complaint - never heard back.
Asked for the practice manager to contact me - never heard back.
Called their 0300 number, waiting 50 minutes for someone to answer. Was told I'd be contacted within 5 working days. Never heard back.

Such a shame - under Babylon, I thought they were great. But since E-Med took over, everything has become worse.

I've noticed that a lot of their old GPs are leaving the practice too - and wonder what's really happening behind the facade of the app.

I am reporting them to the CQC and ICB thand strongly encourage everyone with poor experiences to do the same.
Google nwlondonicb + complaints and you can find how to do so.

had to wait for 24 hours to get an appointment and the clinician didn’t turn up, had to wait another 24 hours now to see if anybody turns up tomorrow..shockingly u professional. And no way to complain either !

stay away took 2 weeks for a gp appointment only for the appointment to be cancelled

Fantastic service- highly recommend

You never find appointments they are always a month away. Why would I need to book a subscription with private GP just to be seen? Sadly they’ve gotten worse and worse over the years.

Yesterday, I’ve had an appointment with a guy who was so rude he seemed like he just wanted to clock in and get it over with. He also did not have a biography so I had to google him to see what kind of a specialist he is. He didn’t even read the notes or saw the pictures I attached and it also seemed like there was someone in the background who he was gesturing to- which is not private. When I got on the call he was already late, did not apologise and I had the thermometer in my mouth - he was not compassionate to an ill person and started asking questions. When I started talking with the thermometer in, he was like “ I beg you pardon?” With a bothered face. Can work on being nicer to patients! I can't believe this is the type of service and treatment people are getting in the UK. People like these should not work in the med field.

Appalling service
I am in week 3 of service and medication.
Check-ins not recieved for injections...
No reply to requests for help..
Chat doesnt work...
Paying top price for private service and medication and basically, it's rubbish.

Awful Comms, avoid

It's 31 July today, their earliest GP appointment is on 20 Aug. Their Instagram ads tried to scam people to claim people could get a next day appointment.

Since Babylon was acquired by eMed, the service has gotten worryingly worse.

Over the last few months I’ve experienced cancellations to my appointments, they’ve missed appointments or they’ve never called back.
Practitioners share outdated weblinks to upload documents when asked, and customer service takes hours to answer back only to give random weblinks for generic documents submissions.
I really hope a competitor jumps in to the opportunity.

My understanding from researching eMed is that this has more to do with management and company policy than the practitioners. Under the Babylon's management the service was exceptional as you can see from other reviews.

It would help if the doctors actually showed up. Running late then 20 mins later no show, reschedule for later tonight. Exact same thing again. The fact the new owners of GP at Hand, eMed is now sacking hundreds of NHS doctors in favour of private is starting to show the cracks. Patient pays the price.

It is clear that eMed UK want to get rid of all the NHS patients as they don't make money from them. But I would also argue that their service is criminally poor and they should be sued for endangering patient's lives through wilful withholding of minimal, basic level of health service. The fact that I have to wait for a GP appointment for 3 weeks is probably the least flagrant example. Frequently cancelled appointments, lost test results, persistently wrong medication prescriptions, half of specialists letters not reaching eMed and therefore missing from my record, needing to wait for half a day to reach someone on the phone, the list goes on and on.

One out of every 3-4 appointments is cancelled, oftentimes on the day and at the time of the call, after you've been waiting for 20-30 even 40 minutes. Leading you to have to schedule a new appointment and wait for another 3 weeks.

I have to wait for weeks or months for blood tests just because they don't have enough slots. For two of my appointments they referred me to another service, Medefer, who then referred me to someone else. Their web site was broken and I was punted to yet another service. I had two separate appointments, one with a specialist and one for blood test. That was 2 months ago. They have no idea where my blood tests are and I never received a letter from the specialist who examined me. I was also referred to wear a heart monitor for 24 hours so I had to travel across town to get to the hospital and get outfitted with the monitor and then the same thing so I can return the monitor along with my data. Again, that was two months ago and I never ever heard from anyone about my results, neither has anyone stepped in to tell me what's wrong, and my symptoms still persist.

Then we have the saga of getting repeat prescriptions. I have two prescriptions that I'll have to take for life. It took me 8 appointments (two of which cancelled at the last second) to get them right. I didn't think it was possible to get so many things wrong but they did surpass even my wildest imagination for a catastrophically incompetent service. First, they got the dosage wrong, on both prescriptions. Then it took another three appointments to fix the dose because they just kept getting it wrong, again and again. Their idea of fixing the dosage was to issue two separate prescriptions for the same medication, on different dates which effectively meant that I had to pay twice to achieve the same dose (once for the 100mg and once for the 50mg which they had omitted originally and of course pick each prescription up at different times). Then we have the other med where their prescription was enough only for 22 days. Several different appointments with a GP and a prescribing pharmacist to figure it out. You'd think they were building a space rocket. Then, after they finally figured out how to enter in the system the correct dose, they put the dates so far in the future that I was left with no medication for weeks. My 8th call resulted in the person supposedly fixing the last remaining problem. I will be going to my local pharmacy for the 3rd time now and am crossing my fingers and toes that this time it really works.

And finally, my cervical screening exam. It took me several attempts (including one failed appointment where the person couldn't access the system), a call to their main phone number which resulted in a 4 hour wait only to miss their return call and then an online chat which resulted in an hour and a half wait (even though their system said 33 minutes). It is finally scheduled but it meant that I had to spend inordinate amounts of time on trying to schedule appointments and get medication right, instead of doing my day job.

If anyone ever wants to sue this company I'd be the first one to testify about my experience and the pernicious effect it has had not only on my day job but also on my quality of life. With a customer service like this, we soon will need to have mental health therapy which I surely hope won't have to be scheduled and managed via eMed.

Impossible - appointment timelines just as long as normal NHS now, have had multiple referrals in the system but zero follow up for over 6 months, and no access to referrals to be able to follow up myself. Requested contact via email as cannot pick up phone during working hours, but continues to try contact via phone. No access by emed staff to NHS records on Sunday. All round not been good for my health outcomes.