Telehealth Compliance Statement

All doctors on GP on Call are registered with the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) under the Health Professions Act, No. 56 of 1974. Registration status is verified during the onboarding process and is a prerequisite for platform approval.

The platform operates in accordance with HPCSA Booklet 10: General Ethical Guidelines for Good Practice in Telehealth (Revised December 2021), read together with Booklet 1 (General Ethical Guidelines), Booklet 4 (Patient Consent), Booklet 5 (Confidentiality), and Booklet 9 (Keeping of Patient Records).

In compliance with Booklet 10 §3.8, no practitioner on GP on Call renders professional services exclusively via telehealth. All doctors maintain active HPCSA registration permitting in-person practice and are capable of referring patients for physical examination when clinically required.

Patients are required to provide telehealth-specific informed consent before every consultation booking. This consent captures: (a) identity confirmation obligation; (b) technology and confidentiality risks; (c) acknowledgement that telehealth is not a complete substitute for physical examination; (d) emergency escalation awareness; (e) no social media communications; (f) data transmission consent; (g) doctor responsibility acknowledgement; and (h) POPIA consent.

Consent is time-stamped, stored against the booking record, and retained as part of the patient's health record in compliance with Booklet 10 §5.7(b) and Booklet 9.

Patients may withdraw consent at any time by contacting support@gponcall.co.za. Withdrawal will result in the consultation being rescheduled as an in-person appointment where clinically appropriate.

GP on Call explicitly informs patients at the consent stage and booking flow that the platform is not suitable for life-threatening emergencies. Patients are directed to call 112 (national emergency number) or 10177 (ambulance) and to present at the nearest emergency room for any emergency.

Where an urgent situation arises during a consultation, the treating doctor is obliged to advise immediate emergency referral and is supported by the platform's escalation status (booking status: "escalated") to flag and document such events.

The booking system includes an AI-powered symptom triage assessment (Routine / Soon / Urgent) to assist in appropriate care routing. Urgent cases are flagged to the doctor prior to consultation with a clinical summary.

Before any booking can proceed, patients are screened for contraindications to online consultation — including chest pain, stroke symptoms, severe trauma, major bleeding, and other emergencies. Patients who select any such condition are immediately redirected to emergency services (112 / 10177) and cannot proceed with an online booking.

Patient identity is established at profile creation (full name, SA ID number, date of birth) and confirmed at the start of each consultation by the treating doctor. Patients consent to this verification requirement as part of the telehealth consent process.

All doctors display their HPCSA registration number, practice number, qualifications, and photo on their profile. This information is verified by the GP on Call admin team during the approval workflow before any doctor is listed as available on the platform.

In line with Booklet 10 §5.7(b)(iii), if any third party is present during a consultation (on either side), both the patient and doctor are required to disclose and obtain consent before proceeding.

The platform maintains a full health record per patient, including consultation summaries, prescriptions (with ICD-10 codes), sick notes, lab results, imaging, referral letters, and follow-up tasks — accessible 24/7 via the secure Health Records Library.

The AI-powered pre-consultation triage (symptom checker and Nurse Roxanne conversational triage) is used solely to prepare clinical context for the treating practitioner and to route patients appropriately. Triage results are supplementary to — not a substitute for — a live synchronous consultation. No diagnosis is issued from triage alone. This complies with the requirement that prescriptions based solely on online questionnaires do not meet the standard of care.

The platform routes mild to moderate cases to partner pharmacies for initial assessment by SAPC-registered pharmacists. Pharmacists operate within their scope of practice (standard or PCDT-enabled). Escalation to a GP occurs with full clinical context when a pharmacist determines further assessment is needed. All pharmacy consultations, triage outcomes, and escalation decisions are persisted in TriageSession records for clinical audit.

Doctors are provided with a longitudinal view of a patient's recurring symptoms and past intake answers ahead of each consultation. This supports continuity of care and richer clinical assessment, without replacing the live consultation requirement.

Prescriptions on GP on Call are issued only after a full synchronous video consultation and clinical history review. Pre-consultation intake questionnaires are supplementary and are not treated as a substitute for a live clinical assessment, in compliance with the requirement that prescriptions based solely on online questionnaires do not meet the standard of care.

Doctors can assign structured follow-up tasks (blood tests, medication adherence checks, specialist referrals, etc.) post-consultation. Automated email reminders are sent to patients on the designated reminder date, supporting continuity of care.

All prescriptions include a diagnosis field with ICD-10 coding support, ensuring records meet the standard expected for South African healthcare documentation.

GP on Call complies with the Protection of Personal Information Act, No. 4 of 2013 (POPIA). Patient personal and health information is collected only for the purpose of providing healthcare services, is stored securely, and is not shared with third parties without explicit consent, except as required by law.

All medical documents (prescriptions, sick notes, lab results, health records) are stored using encrypted cloud storage. Access to private files is controlled through time-limited signed URLs, ensuring documents cannot be accessed without authorisation.

In compliance with Booklet 10 §3.4 and §3.5, GP on Call does not facilitate or permit clinical consultations via social media platforms (WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, etc.). All patient-doctor communication occurs within the secure, POPIA-compliant GP on Call platform only.

Patients explicitly consent to the electronic transmission and storage of their health information as part of the telehealth informed consent process.

The treating doctor retains full clinical and ethical responsibility for all advice, diagnoses, treatment decisions, and recommendations made during a telehealth consultation, in accordance with Booklet 10 §5.3. This responsibility is not transferred to the platform or any third party.

Where a doctor determines during a telehealth consultation that an in-person examination, specialist referral, or emergency intervention is clinically necessary, the doctor is obliged to advise the patient accordingly. The platform supports specialist referral letters as a health record type.

All healthcare practitioners on GP on Call remain bound by the HPCSA's Ethical Rules of Conduct for Health Practitioners registered under the Health Professions Act, and by all applicable professional ethical booklets, even when practising via telehealth.