Reduce Waiting Lists and Free Up Capacity

NHS Highland roll out Waiting List Validation across all Outpatient specialties to validate patients leading to shorter waiting time for those who need clinical appointments

waiting lists

The challenge

NHS Highland is one of the largest and most sparsely populated Health Boards in the UK, and they are committed to putting quality first, to deliver better health, better care and better value.

In 2021, with waiting lists having increased exponentially during COVID and a higher conversion rate of routine to urgent appointments (due to the routine pathway disruption during the pandemic), NHS Highland were keen to implement a way to validate patients on their waiting lists and prioritise patients in order of urgency.

They wanted to supplement ‘patient focused booking’, where patients were sent letters asking them to contact the Board to make an appointment, followed by a reminder letter – a laborious and often slow approach. This was helping to reduce DNAs, but NHS Highland knew there was room for improvement in administration, DNA reduction and patient experience.

They also knew that validating patients would create more accurate – and shorter – waiting lists, at a time when the urgency to reduce waiting lists has never been greater. This would also reduce incoming calls as patients had previously called in to say they no longer needed their appointment, adding to the administrative burden on the Board.

A waiting list validation solution

As Netcall customers for more than 20 years, NHS Highland approached us to help them with this challenge.  They selected Waiting List Validation, a module of Patient Hub, our patient engagement portal, because it delivers high response rates, typically leading to significant numbers of patients opting to be discharged from waiting lists.

“We now have an average discharge rate of 9%, in some areas up to 15%. Crucially, by keeping our waiting list tidy and validated, patients are seen in priority order where applicable. It helps reduce DNAs and short notice cancellations, allowing us to utilise clinical and administrative time better. Each of these metrics have a knock-on effect on the quality of care for patients across the whole system.”

Jamie Forrester

Head of Health Records, NHS Highland

The solution

“It works well. Once the data feeds are going in, the administration and support is minimal and the reporting functionality enables us to measure the impact. Each incremental improvement makes a big difference to reducing our waiting lists, making savings, streamlining our processes and ultimately improves our service to patients.“

Jamie Forrester

Head of Health Records, NHS Highland

The result

  • An average discharge rate across all specialities of 9.2%, with some areas, like Ophthalmology achieving 15% and Dermatology averaging 11%
  • Flexibility and control – enabling language and options to be fully adaptable to allow patients to reply with a ‘delay response’ – providing details on when they could/couldn’t remain on the list, which crucially enables prioritisation of patients in order of urgency and prevents patients going back through the system on appointments that were not suitable
  • Tailoring, reconfiguring the language of communications, taking on patient feedback and extending the notification thresholds to five days has enabled NHS Highland to drive continually improving responses
  • Management intelligence and reporting on improvements – NHS Highland have seen the advantages of tailoring the communication to learn why a patient wants to be discharged, which enables them to make future adjustments to have even better impacts in the future
  • Reduced administration, taking much less time for staff which enables them to work on other tasks
  • All acute specialties, where clinically appropriate, are now using the Waiting List Validation module
  • Clinical time related to validation is optimised
  • Access for all – patients have full ability to receive communication by SMS or email (patient preference may be influenced by phone/internet signal in remote locations in the Highlands) and to alter the display with pinch to zoom, colour changes etc to improve visibility, particularly useful for Ophthalmology patients
  • Up to £1 million of appointment costs avoided by discharging people from the list that no longer need clinical time.
What’s next for the Waiting List Validation application?

Generating GP discharge letters, HAB homecare support and patient contact letters through the Waiting List Validation application. NHS Highland is also keen to introduce chatbots to cut down on calls into the contact centre.

Impact

15% Discharge Rate

in key specialities

81% Response Rate

from patients

c. £1m

costs avoided

Instantly reduce waiting list size

Here’s how you can accelerate waiting list validation and reduce the total number of people waiting – cost effective and rapidly deployed.

Waiting List Validation See it in action

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