Q. What is slack and has it any use in general practice?

A. Slack is a collaboration system for teams. It reduces the need for email within companies or work teams by combining instant messaging, notifications, file sharing and search. It integrates with videoconferencing software, online file storage and social media.

I don't see it being useful for the core work of GPs, but it certainly could contribute to ad hoc teams working on projects, research teams or the work of companies or startups. There are a couple of down sides, as always. The data is held on servers in the US, so there is no way you could have any patient-related data on Slack. There is a per-user per-month payment system, so it could get expensive very quickly as users are added.