Outpatients transformation – how The Royal Cornwall Hospital NHS and Isles of Scilly transformed the patient experience with a patient engagement portal

Outpatients transformation – how The Royal Cornwall Hospital NHS and Isles of Scilly transformed the patient experience with a patient engagement portal

The Royal Cornwall Hospital NHS and Isles of Scilly transformed patient experience with our patient engagement portal, Patient Hub.

The Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust (RCHT) is the main provider of acute and specialist care services in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. It serves a population of around 470,000 people, a figure that increases significantly with visitors during the busiest times of the year.

RCHT embarked on an outpatient transformation programme to optimise their referrals and give patients greater control and convenience with their appointments – meaning less time travelling to hospital appointments and in waiting rooms — and better access to follow-up hospital care when needed.

 “Working with Netcall has been great. They’ve listened to our ideas; they’ve understood and got the vision of what we were trying to achieve in terms of an end goal.”— Claire Florey, SRO – Outpatient Transformation, Royal Cornwall Hospital NHS Trust.

A Solution:

• A single point of referral entry to streamline the patient journey and give the most appropriate treatment
• Improved patient experience, 70% now access appointments through the patient portal
• 56% reduction in DNAs as patients manage their own healthcare
• Saving 1,677 p/m otherwise wasted appointments, supporting elective recovery
• No patient left behind, an integrated journey through telephony and legacy systems

When RCHT, as part of outpatients transformation, originally mapped out all the referrals, there were lots of different ways into their organisation. Now they have a single point of entry. They signpost each referral into different services for face-to-face, remote consultations including telephone and video and management through advice and guidance. Each referral is vetted and triaged to the most appropriate service or provider.

This was a step change for RCHT. In the past, they would have set up a different web portal per service. Now they communicate through one portal for all outpatient work, transforming outpatient services for patients.

A great outcome:

RCHT operational model is now included as an example in planning guidance to support other trusts looking for case studies to implement their own personalised outpatient’s transformation programme. This is a key component of elective recovery across the NHS this year.

Now with Patient Hub our patients have all the relevant information online, whenever they need to check it. It means that we are not going to have so many missed appointments…a big part of my job is making sure clinic spaces aren’t empty and that people get seen as quickly as possible. -Charles Webb, Outpatient Booking Coordinator, Royal Cornwall Hospital NHS Trust.

 Building on the benefits that patients are able to engage with their appointment slot, patients are now able to adjust and confirm an appointment through the app. The DNA rate for those patients is half the trust’s average. It’s a real significant gain for RCHT. The more we engage with our patients through this technology, the less we are seeing appointment slots wasted. 

“Building on the benefits that patients are able to engage with their appointment slot, patients are now able to adjust and confirm an appointment through the app. The DNA rate for those patients is half the trust’s average. It’s a real significant gain for RCHT. The more we engage with our patients through this technology, the less we are seeing appointment slots wasted.” Robin Jones, Interim Chief Operating Officer, Royal Cornwall Hospital NHS Trust.