Primary Health Care (PHC) has set up a new Telemedicine service in March 2020, to provide accessible, safe and continuous medical care to the community. This service operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The Telemedicine Centre is currently situated in a dedicated facility in Siggiewi, co-located with the Primary Health Care Client Support Centre (CSC), allowing both entities to work in synergy to maximise client service.
Clinical Service
This remote clinical service is delivered by a team of General Practitioners (GPs) and GP trainees. The doctors communicate with patients who have been registered, over the telephone, on the PHC Electronic Patient Records (EPR) by the CSC agents. During the daily consultations, doctors provide general medical advice, medical guidance regarding patient symptomatology, assess and coordinate domiciliary visit requests in collaboration with Health Centre doctors, and also address all health needs of patients while guiding them to access all services currently available in our community. They can also request certain investigations and provide information about investigation results, when this is clinically indicated, such as in cases where these investigations were previously ordered by Health Centre PHC doctors. Frequent GP medical support is also provided in relation to clients in various residential homes, including homes for the elderly in our community.
In addition, the Telemedicine team works closely with laboratory services at Mater Dei Hospital. Doctors are promptly informed of significantly abnormal results to ensure timely patient contact and appropriate escalation of care.
Virtual Consultations
Where appropriate, video consultations may be conducted using secure platforms such as Microsoft Teams and WhatsApp Business. This offers a safe visual aid to our medical consultations, enabling a more holistic service while enhancing clinical assessment and communication and maintaining patient confidentiality.
Clinical Governance and Documentation
All medical consultations are fully documented in the EPR, and aim to follow structured, evidence-based GP-consultation models to ensure consistent, high-quality care. GP trainees receive dedicated training in both face-to-face and virtual consultation methods. Current activity levels (2025/2026) show that up to 350 medical consultations are conducted over 24 hours.
Supporting Community Care
The PHC Telemedicine Centre has thus become an important GP tool complementing face-to-face consultations in caring for our patients, while potentially offloading physical health centres in the process. It enhances access to medical advice, supports continuity of care, and helps reduce pressure on health centres, while maintaining patient and staff safety.
Contact Information
Patients can access the service by contacting the PHC Client Support Centre on:
This PHC service is available 24 hours a day, Monday to Sunday.
This is not an emergency service. To contact emergency services, one should phone 112. If one is unsure whether the situation is an emergency, one can phone 1400.