A NEW campaign by a Musselburgh medical practice to reduce the number of missed appointments at the surgery has seen some early success this month.
Riverside Medical Practice, based at Musselburgh Primary Care Centre, said data showed that its new text message appointment reminders had cut the number of appointments not being attended by 30 per cent.
The practice said that each month it was seeing a number of missed appointments – appointments which patients do not attend and do not cancel – which equated in total to more than two days’ worth of GP appointments and two days’ worth of chronic disease nurse appointments. A “large number” of treatment room nursing and phlebotomy appointments were also being missed.
The team at the practice have started trialling a range of initiatives to help with this, starting with last month’s introduction of text message appointment reminders for all pre-booked appointments in the surgery, along with the ability to cancel appointments by text.
READ MORE: Riverside Medical Practice changes ‘phone journey’
“When we looked at our missed appointments data, we wanted to try and do something about it,” said Dr Richard Fairclough, GP partner at Riverside.
“We know it’s easy to forget an appointment, particularly those which are booked in advance.
“At other times, last-minute things come up that make it hard to attend an appointment, such as issues with childcare arrangements.
“In a recent survey we sent to our new Patient Panel, these were the top-three reasons they said might lead them to miss an appointment and not cancel it – along with there not being an easy way to cancel appointments.
“We hoped that sending people an SMS [text] appointment reminder would reduce the number of missed appointments – and this has proven to be the case, meaning that less valuable NHS resource is being wasted.
“If a pre-booked appointment is no longer convenient – or people’s symptoms have resolved and they don’t need the appointment any more – they can now cancel it simply by replying to the text message.
“We’ve then been able to offer the appointment to other patients who need them, which should have also contributed to reduced waiting times on our busy phoneline – which benefits everyone in the community.
“But we still think we can do better – and are asking all of our patients to continue to help us by cancelling any appointments they no longer need. We look forward to giving more updates as the project progresses – keep an eye on our website, our patient newsletters and our waiting rooms for the latest results.”
This was just one of a “range of quality improvement projects” under way at the practice this autumn, he added, as they continue their “work to listen to patients and to make sure that people can access the high-quality care” they offer as easily as possible.
Patients can also help by making sure the practice has their up-to-date mobile number.
Those who have a new mobile number – or for whom the practice doesn’t have a phone number – can visit theriversidepractice.co.uk/update-your-personal-details to let the practice know by filling in an online form.
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