Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells (MTW) NHS Trust went live with Patients Know Best (PKB) in October 2023, part of the organisation’s commitment to its “Patient First” core value, registering over 100,000 patients in the first six months alone.

Enhancing patient experience and access was central to the deployment of this new digital technology.   A primary focus of the MTW Project Team was to give patients more control over their appointments.  Additionally, the Trust aimed to decrease the volume of appointment-related telephone calls, and reduce the call waiting times for those patients still wishing to cancel or reschedule via the phone.

Patients received their appointment letters from MTW via post, and had to call the relevant Clinical Assessment Unit to reschedule or cancel their appointment. With hundreds of appointment-related phone calls each week, patients would often face significant waits in telephone queues, before reaching the relevant MTW member.  

This process left administration teams without a direct way to receive appointment, reschedule and cancellation information from patients, necessitating time consuming phone calls for each request. 

Patients who preferred not to call the hospital, or be frustrated by long hold times, might not complete their request to cancel or reschedule their appointment, leading to potential Did Not Attend (DNA) situations. Failing to attend a scheduled appointment means other patients have to wait longer to be seen, and each DNA costs MTW £120. 

To address these challenges, the Trust wanted to provide patients with a new digital option for managing their appointments, that allowed patients to easily request to cancel or reschedule online, without the need for telephoning the hospital. 

The MTW Project Team identified the Outpatient Contact Centre (OCC), a recently established service, as the ideal service to engage with patients using this new digital solution. The OCC was tasked with managing calls from outpatients, and would oversee the digital appointment pathway when it was launched, ensuring a seamless service for all incoming appointment related contacts. 

In November 2023, MTW began sending digital appointment letters and appointments into PKB. Patients were notified of these by email and could log in to PKB via the link in the email or via the NHS App to view in the appointment section of their record. 

With the PKB appointment messaging feature activated, patients could request a cancellation or reschedule any future appointments. Once the patient sent their request, the message went through to the OCC. The patient then saw a ‘View your request’ button beside their appointment, which took them to the message they sent.

The OCC liaises with the relevant Clinical Administration Unit team, and then processes the cancellation or reschedule. The patient is notified with the new details or cancellation confirmation once the changes have been made by the Trust. 

Staff from the OCC were trained to effectively utilise the portal within their existing workflow, and supported by documentation outlining procedures and addressing potential queries. A comprehensive engagement plan ensured that volunteer services, reception staff, and Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS) were aware of the new functionality, and comfortable in explaining it to patients. 

The numbers of cancel and reschedule requests being made to the OCC through PKB has grown month on month, thereby meeting their aim of reducing the number of appointment-related telephone calls.  Over the last 12 months they received 1273 cancel requests and 6,666 reschedule requests totalling 7,939 requests through PKB.

Previously, each of these 4,145 requests would have required a phone call with an average phone call duration of three minutes, this translates to approximately 207 working hours or 27 working days (based on a 7.5-hour workday). representing a significant opportunity for administration time savings.  Additionally, this shift has decreased the wait times for patients in the call queue due to fewer incoming calls.

Since going live using the PKB Request to Cancel or Reschedule functionality the Trust has seen a decrease on their numbers of DNA’s by over 38% - higher than the 34% DNA average seen across all Trusts using PKB in acute and mental health services.

The Trust will continue to track phone calls saved and DNA rates as the use of PKB expands and increasing numbers of patients register on the platform.