A Broken Patient Communication Journey

22nd July 2024

by John Clarke

There’s a vicious circle when it comes to handling patient communication in the NHS – making more effective use of the data that Trusts hold about patients holds the key to breaking the chain:

• There’s been a significant increase in calls into patient service centres since the pandemic that mainly ties back to the number of people on waiting lists
• There’s a shortage of staff – only 26% of Trusts say they have enough staff in their organisation
• Satisfaction in the NHS is at an all-time low – meaning the number of people making contact to complain is higher than ever. With too many calls to answer every Trust is at risk of leaving patients waiting for too long. And when they do finally get through, they can be pushed from one department to another without having their query answered in an efficient way. Unresolved queries leads to repeat calls back into the hospital to get an update, only to go around the same broken communication loop again.

What’s causing the breaks in patient communication?

So why does this happen? Not having a single and contextually relevant view of a patient available at the point of receiving calls or messages is a major issue for Trusts.

This means that patient information is often scattered across different systems and departments, making it difficult for NHS staff to access key information to answer patient enquiries quickly and productively. This creates stress and anxiety for both patients and staff.

This lack of a single view of patient data can significantly lower productivity and  create overall inefficiencies in the healthcare system. Patients have to repeat questions multiple times to different agents, and to chase answers and updates. This leads to frustration and potentially complaints.

An example of a broken communication journey

A patient calls in to change their appointment type from face to face to telephone or video.

The patient calls in to speak to an agent. The booking centre agent needs to ask the back-office service if the request can be granted. For a lot of Trusts that would involve sending an email via Outlook. Of course, there is no tracking for this. The email may not get picked up if the recipient is on leave and if they do reply, the agent themselves may then be off and not see the response in a suitable time.

With no tracking and reporting, these queries will be left open, with no clear status update or next steps defined. Typically, if the patient does not hear anything, they will call up again, now feeling frustrated and anxious. And the whole experience happens again. Or, the patient having not heard anything, may just assume the appointment has been changed to a telephone appointment, so does not attend, leading to an unnecessary DNA.

Clinical experience vs. admin experience

The NHS offers a clinical service that is second to none. But patient experience is made up of all interactions with the hospital, and if the administrative experience is poor the patient will feel let down, frustrated and unhappy. Before the patient is dealt with clinically, the admin functions are the face of the hospital. This is where the true first impressions are created. And we all know that a bad first impression is difficult to shift and can colour all subsequent feelings.

Poor service on the front line can lead to complaints which have to be dealt with by NHS management, taking more valuable time and resource. This creates a vicious circle of low productivity and reactive activity.

“To address these challenges, the NHS needs to invest in technologies that enable a single view of meaningful patient administrative data and improve communication among departments across hospitals. A system where calls and subsequent queries can be logged and tracked with relevant SLAs and dashboards in place. A closed loop where the patient journey is complete.”

John Clarke

Head of Patient Solutions – Health, Netcall

By implementing solutions such as our PRM solution, the NHS can improve productivity and outcomes by reducing the number and duration of calls coming into the booking centre. This reduces errors in handling enquiries, and ultimately enhances the overall patient experience.