Your experience of hospital outpatient appointment letters
Report – 7th November 2024
Hospital appointment letters are intended to give you clear information about your appointment and what to expect when you attend your appointment.
330 people responded to our poll across Sussex. 62 of these were from Brighton and Hove.
We heard:
- The majority of respondents from Brighton and Hove were very satisfied (36%) or satisfied (28%) with the communication regarding their most recent outpatient appointment. Only 13% were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied (10%).
- Residents of Brighton and Hove were most dissatisfied with: Information helping you to understand who to contact with a query about your appointment (18% dissatisfied) and information helping you to understand when your appointment was (11% dissatisfied).
- 72% of respondents did not receive any information about choosing which provider (i.e. what hospital or service) you wanted to receive care from in their most recent letter. Only 8% stated that they did receive this information.
- Of those that contacted the hospital/ provider with a question about their appointment, 17% could not get to speak to anyone about their appointment and 3% spoke to someone but their question was not answered to their satisfaction. 25% were able to speak to someone and get their question answered to their satisfaction.
Respondents to our poll told us they would like to see:
A move to digital communication for outpatient appointments and more information on how to cancel or change appointments.
“Hospitals (and GP practices) must start using digital appointment system where a patient can book, change and cancel an appointment”
“Get rid of the paper letters - it’s not 1950 any more. Just communicate through the app. So much money must be wasted generating and sending paper letters and by the time they arrive you have maybe changed the appointment anyway!”
Clearer information about changing or cancelling appointments in the letter.
“Make it easier & quicker to cancel or change appointments. The process is terrible, ages waiting for someone to answer the phone.”
“I think there needs to be clearer information about who to contact if you need to cancel an appointment”
Communication via one method to avoid confusion.
‘I find it very confusing that appointment notifications come from different places, sometimes a letter, a text or a notification on the NHS app or Patients Knows Best app or sometimes the UHS portal. Also when you log into all of the above they all say different things, that you have no upcoming appointments for example when in fact you do, seems like all these different apps are separate and don't join up so its difficult to know what's correct’.
“I receive letters from different NHS departments, they all come different ways and require lengthy logins on [different] apps which is confusing and means lots of passwords and authenticating just to view the letter or message about an appointment. I use tech in my daily life but still find these processes overly confusing and annoying [every time] I try to log in, please [simplify] it and use one app, one login and one [verification]!”
