Our Values

At Dr Morton's - the medical helpline^© we aim to provide quality medical advice with kindness and using words that you can understand.

Quality medical advice: We provide medical advice from experienced fully qualified doctors. The doctors that work with Dr Morton's - the medical helpline^© are each registered with the GMC to provide medical advice from the UK. We also plan to recruit experienced doctors from the equivalent body in New Zealand to cover UK night support in due course. We do not work with inexperienced doctors. If you are paying for our services we believe that you should expect the best.

Kindness: It may seem like an old fashioned word, but we know that a little bit of kindness can go a very long way. We want you to know that we care about you. Whatever your query we will treat you with respect. Consulting a doctor should not be a frightening experience. We aim to provide reassurance whenever we can. If we treat you with kindness and compassion we believe it will contribute to your wellbeing and provide you with the help you need to recover or move forward with your health needs, be they big or small.

Words that you can understand: Doctors tend to have a habit of using lengthy medical terms or acronyms (initials for medical terms) because, when speaking between doctors this helps them to be concise. They may forget that their language comes across as jargon or unintelligible or even scary when speaking to a patient or customer. If our doctors ever do this, please stop them and ask them to explain. We know that you would like medical care made simple. We seek to recruit 'user friendly' doctors that already have the skill to demystify medical problems by using words that you can understand.

Empowerment: We like to give power back to you the customer. We aim to do so whenever we can. Surveys show that over 40 per cent. of people with a medical query will in the first instance self diagnose via the internet and we suspect that this figure increases every year. We know that not everyone gets their own diagnosis right. Websites like NHS Choices or WebMD are an excellent source of information but the standard of advice beyond this is not so good. We aim to put this right by allowing you to speak directly to a doctor, or email one when you need reassurance or advice.

Advice not drugs: We don't sell drugs. We provide advice. Our doctors are capable of writing prescriptions but our doctors will only do so once we have asked sufficient questions to be sure that prescription is appropriate to your circumstances. We prefer advice over medicine as a means to help you recover. Our doctors retain absolute discretion and may decline to give advice, or to prescribe if they are in any way unsure of your circumstances, or if the medical information you have provided leads them to think it would be unsafe to do so.

Customers not patients: As a fee paying customer we hope that you won't have to be too patient with us. There may be peak times when our phone lines or email inboxes are overloaded. If so, we apologise in advance. The expansion of our business will be limited by the pace at which we recruit good doctors to work with us. We will not compromise the quality of our service by rushing recruitment, as we are very clear about which doctors will be the very best to help you.