A NEW NHS text reminder service has helped to combat thousands of appointments being missed in the borough.

At the beginning of May 2021, more than 90 per cent of specialities at Bolton NHS Foundation Trust went live with SMS appointment reminders for patients.

The aims of the project were to improve communication with patients and reduce the number of patients failing to attend their appointments.

Three months after implementing this system, the number of new patients not attending their first appointment reduced by 22 per cent, and for follow up appointments this reduced by 14 per cent.

This meant 3,000 appointment slots from cancellations and rebookings could potentially be reused, therefore allowing more patients to be seen sooner.

The new system sends text reminders seven days before an appointment and then again approximately 48 hours before a patient is due to attend an appointment, so it is unlikely patients will forget.

Patients who have a landline registered will receive a voice message instead to ensure patients are reminded.

The messages give patients the option to confirm, cancel or rebook, reducing the number of calls to the booking team.

This is just the start of a trust-wide transformation journey to implement a full digital by default strategy.

The next step in the programme is to introduce a new digital appointment letter system this autumn, where patients with a registered mobile phone number will receive a text message containing a link to obtain their appointment letter via a patient portal.

Patients can then confirm, cancel or arrange to rebook the planned appointment.

Ryan Calderbank, , the trust’s deputy divisional director for diagnostics, said: “I want to thank our trust project team, who worked alongside Healthcare Communications, to deliver this project in five weeks. It was a great team effort.

“We’re now eager to roll out the Patient Engagement Portal and continue personalising communications for our patients’ needs.”

Anyone who would like to find out more about patient reminders can visit the trust’s website which includes full details of the system and frequently asked questions.