Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Basis Belief (NLAG) has launched new options to the NHS App to remodel how sufferers entry and handle their appointments.
The brand new options at the moment enable sufferers to see and handle their GP referrals and hospital appointments. With time they can even have the ability to see their letters and ready instances too.
Permitting sufferers extra entry to their appointment bookings in addition to making it simpler to e book, cancel or reschedule appointments will assist to scale back the variety of missed appointments.
Northern Lincolnshire and Goole is one among 23 NHS acute trusts to launch the brand new options, that are a part of the Wayfinder programme.
The programme types a part of a nationwide technique led by NHS England to enhance affected person experiences and to sort out ready checklist backlogs.
The initiative is designed to be vendor-agnostic, with affected person communication suppliers from every of the collaborating trusts working along with NHS England for a constant service.
For Northern Lincolnshire and Goole sufferers, Healthcare Communications labored carefully with the nationwide programme group to combine the belief’s affected person portal into the NHS App.
Shauna McMahon, chief info officer on the belief, stated: “We’re dedicated to advancing our digital expertise to boost affected person care, offering improved affected person expertise and reaping the rewards by means of higher operational efficiencies.
“This mission will assist us to construct on the numerous features that we’ve already seen following the introduction of our Healthcare Communications digital affected person engagement portal.”
Northern Lincolnshire and Goole initially launched its affected person portal in June 2021. Since doing so, the more-than 500,000 appointment letters despatched digitally have saved the belief £171,000 in print and administration prices. As well as, SMS reminders have seen then variety of missed appointments drop from 10% to 7%.
Integration to the NHS App occurred in mid-February this yr.
Kenny Bloxham, managing director at Healthcare Communications, stated: “We’re delighted to work with NHS England, associate organisations and the group at NLAG to develop the performance of the NHS App and assist extra folks to entry the companies that they want digitally.”
He added: “We are actually seeking to assist NLAG as we develop the attain of the digital communications offered through the NHS App.”
Again in August final yr, Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust moved to digital letters to make sure sufferers obtained well timed notifications for inpatient or day case admissions.
