Black Country integrated care system (ICS) is rolling out a patient engagement portal to improve patient experience, reduce waiting lists and make financial savings.
In the first four months of the ICS-wide system, 7,329 wasted slots were avoided and did-not-attend (DNAs) reduced by 5%, equating to over £1m estimated income gains and 780 hours saved annually.
The system is already live at The Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust, Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust, and Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust. A final implementation at The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust will follow later this year.
It is part of an extensive programme to digitise patient engagement for 1.21m residents.
Each trust uses the patient portal platform to deliver digital appointment letters and attachments directly to people’s smartphones so they can book, change, or cancel their appointments at the click of a button.
The platform by Healthcare Communications has reduced costly and inefficient paper processes and carbon footprints, as well as replacing legacy systems that fell short of accessibility compliance standards.
Digital-first letters help address high did-not-attend (DNA) rates, often made worse by paper-based letter processes. Pre-implementation, the DNA rate was 10% at the Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust, with 48% of DNA patients identifying paper letters as the cause.
The trust was the first to go live trust-wide last year, after rationalising and standardising 3,500 letter templates to just 316, across 148 departments in acute and community settings.
As of September, half a million digital letter invitations have been sent.
In June 2024, 1,254 patients were surveyed on the portal, and 75% of people stated they found accessing their digital letter ‘good’ or ‘excellent’.
At Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust, the portal is managing 18,000 appointments per week across all outpatient wards.
The trust is working on extending its scope to include patient surveys, e-consent forms, appointments for surgery day cases, and providing clinical letters and supporting information after an appointment.
The new digital communication method is optional, meaning that patients can opt-out to receive appointment letters by post instead, empowering them to make an informed choice based on their preferences.
