Cutting down on missed appointments

It has just been announced that the Royal Mail is to provide the NHS with special bar-coded stamps, which will mean all hospital letters are automatically moved to a priority delivery; this should cut down on ‘DNAs’ (appointments which have been missed when patients fail to turn up) caused by letters failing to arrive on time.

Many patients have complained that hospital appointment letters frequently don’t arrive in time to allow them to make arrangement to attend the appointment – or, worse, arrive after the appointment was scheduled. 

This results in many wasted appointment slots, which consequently gives rise to longer waiting lists…  And of course if you are unable to attend an appointment, your condition may fail to be diagnosed, or you may fail to receive timely treatment.

According to analysis by Healthwatch it is estimated that around a quarter of the annual missed appointments are due to the appointment letter arriving after the appointment date – and if you don’t know you have an appointment, you can’t turn up! Putting that into some meaningful numbers, we reckon that around a total of 8 million people fail to turn up to their appointment each year for various reasons -  and around 2 million of these are due to postal issues.

This new approach has been endorsed by many of those concerned with the performance o the NHS.

Wes Streeting MP, the health and social care secretary, said “As we modernise the NHS and upgrade the NHS App, I’m aware that some patients will always prefer letters.  The important thing is that people have a genuine choice. This agreement will help ensure patients get their appointment information when they need it, however they choose to receive it.”

Louise Ansari, the chief executive at Healthwatch England, said delayed medical letters were a “frustrating admin issue” and that research showed “one in five people received an invitation to an appointment by letter or text after the date of their appointment”.

“Whether missing important appointments or vital test results, letters arriving late can be a patient safety risk, and often puts the burden on people to chase essential communications themselves. We hope these changes lead to improvements for patients and NHS teams,” she said.

Emma Gilthorpe, the Royal Mail chief executive, said: “We understand the vital importance of NHS letters to all our customers. We have put the needs of the NHS at the heart of our universal service reform proposals, ensuring we can deliver a range of service options for appointments and results sent by GP surgeries, NHS bodies and hospitals across the country.

“We have also been working with NHS providers and patient groups to ensure the timely delivery of identifiable medical letters and welcome the truly collaborative approach taken.”

This new system will start to operate in the near future;  let us know if you find it improves things.

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