DOCTORLINK
Helping GPs save up to 6 hours a week during a global pandemic
As Lead Product Designer at Doctorlink, I designed a repeat prescription feature from scratch in two weeks, giving patients a way to manage their medication digitally at a time when visiting a GP surgery wasn't an option.
ROLE
Lead Product Designer
TIMELINE
2 weeks
CHALLENGE
43% of the population rely on repeat prescriptions, costing the NHS nearly £8 billion annually. Online management could save GPs up to 6 hours 40 minutes per week.
Defining Success
In 2020, Doctorlink was selected by the NHS as the only provider of both online triage and video consultations during COVID-19. We had an opportunity to expand the functionality to support repeat prescriptions.
Within the first week we wanted to identify and design an in-app solution for repeat prescription management. Following that, we decided to spend the following week validating our idea with patient and GP feedback, given that Doctorlink is both patient and practitioner facing. It was important that we focus on both safety and ease of use.
Approach
Once I understood the key limitations and constraints, I mapped a simple success flow: a registered patient logs into Doctorlink to re-order medication for an existing repeat prescription.
I shared these ideas with our Clinical Governance, Product, and Engineering teams, which surfaced several important considerations:
What if a patient’s record is missing current repeat prescriptions?
How should patients review past orders?
How do we show the status of an active order?
How can we distinguish between existing medication orders and new requests?
Testing
To validate our assumptions, I tested an early prototype with 10 patients interested in managing their repeat prescriptions digitally.
Key learnings from testing:
Patients need a clear signal when a prescription is ready to collect
It's unclear how or when they’ll be contacted
Reminders to re-order are important
Patients worry that changing their pharmacy is permanent
The “Remove medication” CTA caused anxiety for similar reasons
Updating design documentation
Approved components from the new journey need to be added to our design documentation. This makes them accessible to other designers and provides context and detail for developers.
The results
Our MVP lets patients request repeat prescriptions from their practice, but it isn’t yet connected to their patient records.
GP practices favour tools that save time and reduce admin. However, this version adds workload as staff must review and escalate email requests manually.
Uptake has been lower than expected, so we're now exploring a fully integrated version managed via a clinician-facing practice portal.
