The doctor is... online...

Got a headache that won’t go away or having trouble sleeping? Concerned about a lump or bump which you’re convinced wasn’t there just the day before? With GP appointments almost as scarce as hens’ teeth, it’s always tempting to turn to Dr Google to find out what might be wrong. And usually that can scare the life out of you.

Which is why a host of new apps and online symptom checkers have been developed, apparently offering more accurate health information than self-diagnosis through search engines.

But the medical profession is pretty split on whether they are useful, so we put three of them through their paces.

Using two health scenarios designed by a GP someone with insomnia and underlying mental health issues and someone with flu symptoms that could potentially be meningitis - we tested Babylon, the private tech company which runs the online NHS GP practice, GP at Hand, another popular app Ada, and the NHS 111 online triage service.

Typically with these types of symptom checkers, you enter the symptoms, the app asks you follow-up questions and reacts to your answers.

Unsurprisingly we found that you get different advice depending on which app you use (although most come with the very sensible advice that they should not be used to replace a proper medical diagnosis from a GP). What became very clear was the importance of how symptoms are described, and the limitations of a check box approach.

For instance Babylon only had an option for ‘restless sleep’ to describe insomnia symptoms. Selecting this option directed patients to talk to their GP about mental health issues, but if not, the app only provided basic fact sheets about sleep. Ada was considered thorough by our experts for the insomnia scenario, but the format didn’t allow for important information to come out - for instance it didn’t react when our tester said they were ‘unsure’ if they had suicidal thoughts.

And when describing flu-like symptoms to the Babylon app it simply assumed you had flu. With additional symptoms, it did suggest meningitis, but also suggested waiting six-hours before seeking medical advice which our experts thought was far too long. The Ada app didn’t ask about key symptoms that would help diagnose meningitis and didn’t suggest it as a pos- sibility. The snapshot test showed some of these apps limitations so if you do use them bear in mind they aren’t perfect. Take the advice you get with a grain of salt, and if in any doubt, consult a GP.

Send me your consumer complaints to askalex@ which.co.uk