The norm is for occupational health patients and medico-legal claimants to be seen and assessed in one of Dr Vohra’s allocated consulting venues or on occasions as a home visit.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic and following on from the advice of The Department of Health and Social Care that non-essential travel or social contact be avoided, some assessments may reasonably be carried out by video consultation. This is in order to adopt a safe and proportionate approach. In many cases video consulting can be carried out quite safely and effectively.
For occupational health patients, a remote assessment is generally acceptable as long as the patient and the employers are both agreeable.
In the case of medico-legal assessments, all information exchanged during the course of a remote consultation will be held in confidence and its use covered under the Data Protection Act 2018.
Information would normally only be shared with those who have legitimate need, such as any party who may have instructed the examination or any medical report organisation that may have been instructed to facilitate the claim. The norm would be to use a video platform that is securely encrypted and by proceeding with a remote consultation the patient or claimant should be satisfied that they have taken the necessary steps to protect their device.
The option of proceeding with a consultation remotely is entirely voluntary and any occupational health patient or medico-legal claimant may withdraw their consent at any stage.
They may also choose to defer the consultation until such time that a face-to-face consultation is deemed to be safe.
It is also the norm with medico-legal clients to obtain a written agreement to a video consultation.
For the purpose of clarification, Dr Vohra does not record video consultations or archive video consultations as this would have its own security implications.