The Hospital Trust has announced that it has saved over £40k to date this year by switching to just sending digital appointments. It writes:

A project to make appointment letters digital by default for patients who use the MY CARE app is making the Trust more sustainable. The project has already saved the printing and posting of 56,483 letters throughout February and March.

Since February, patients with an active MY CARE account are notified about any new appointment information in MY CARE by text message and/or email depending on their individual communication preferences. There is a post ‘fall-back’ to make sure that patients get essential appointment information.

The change was made in response to patient feedback through PALS and the MY CARE helpdesk which has shown that patients on MY CARE want to receive appointment information through MY CARE and not through the post.

During the roll-out there were some reports of additional text messages. The team were quick to review this in order to reduce duplicate messages, but there have been zero reports of patients missing appointments because of this change.

The switch to digital appointment notifications through MY CARE has already saved the Trust £41,825.66 in print and post costs in just two months, which means more money to spend directly on patient care, and is also helping to reduce carbon emissions.

Khalia Lancaster–Thomas, programme director of transformation said, ‘We send out about 2 million letters to patients every year, so this update was a significant undertaking. It’s really important that patients get the information they need in a way that is safe, secure and convenient and we’re continuing our focus to improve our patient communications wherever we can.’

In many ways we applaud this move but must warn everyone of the need to register with the MyCare system, in advance if you are expecting to hear from the Hospital Services.