People waiting for hospital treatment to get three weeks' notice under NHS England plans

People who are waiting for hospital treatment will soon receive at least three weeks of notice before their next appointment. This new plan from NHS England was inspired by the excellent customer service offered by online shops like Amazon and John Lewis.

Hospitals are now being instructed to inform everyone on their waiting lists for operations, tests, or meetings with doctors at least three weeks in advance. The goal is to improve how patients experience the health service and stop the problem of appointment invitations arriving too late, sometimes even after the appointment time has passed.

The chief executive of NHS England, Jim Mackey, stated that the current way hospitals communicate with patients waiting for care is unacceptable. He explained that his plan comes after patient groups asked the NHS to provide better updates on when people can expect to be seen, as not knowing creates a lot of worry.

Research from The King’s Fund showed that nearly one in four patients received their appointment notifications after the appointment date. Other findings from the same group revealed that many patients feel frustrated and uninformed about their care once they are on the waiting list, feeling like they are left in the dark.

NHS England has introduced new standards for patient experience, aiming for England’s 205 NHS trusts to provide ‘five-star customer service’. These standards are designed to address the lack of information patients often receive while waiting for care, such as confirmation that their doctor’s referral has been accepted.

To create these standards, NHS England studied how businesses like Amazon and John Lewis keep their customers informed about deliveries. Jim Mackey commented that people often have family stories about navigating the NHS being very slow and difficult, sometimes with patients unsure if they were even referred. He believes improving patient satisfaction requires fixing these basic communication issues, starting from before the patient even arrives for treatment.

Mackey wants communication to be clear and easy to understand, moving away from patients having to repeatedly ask for information. He urged hospitals to update their communication methods and implement these new standards quickly to provide clarity for patients on waiting lists. In the future, patients will be notified through the NHS app when a specialist accepts their referral and when they are added to the waiting list. This will apply to the approximately 6 million people in England waiting for tests, operations, or appointments.

William Pett from Healthwatch England, a patient advocacy group, said these standards clearly show that NHS leaders recognise high-quality customer service is as important to patients as the waiting time itself. He mentioned that patients have long reported issues like lost referral letters, late appointment letters, or feeling forgotten for months. He added that while medical care is stressful, investing in technology is building a modern NHS that can make accessing care easier. Pett believes these are simple, essential standards that the public should expect as a minimum.