With just under half a million patients on waiting lists in Scotland, the NHS Scotland recovery plan was developed to address the backlog in care and meet ongoing healthcare needs for people across Scotland. As part of this plan, The National Elective Coordination Unit (NECU) was established by the Scottish Government to support national waiting times recovery through the matching of capacity to demand and stratification of NHS Health Board waiting lists through wait list validation.

Using DrDoctor Quick Question and SMS Reminders,  NECU were able to help eight Health Boards accelerate their waiting list validation processes and successfully validate over 88,000 patients, resulting in savings of over £3.57m in cost avoidance.

Challenge

NECU were faced with the challenge of effectively reaching and validating patients on waiting lists. Clinical and booking teams would have to call patients up to three times - if unsuccessful, the team would then write a letter to the patient, asking about their their need for an appointment. This time-consuming process placed a heavy administrative burden on staff, as teams struggled to manage the large volume of outbound calls and the number of patients validated remained constrained. This process prompted the search for a more streamlined, automated solution.

Solution

By combining Quick Question and SMS Reminders into a new digital-led workflow, NECU began validating waiting lists on behalf of eight Health Boards in Scotland, quickly sending thousands of patients a simple question in just a few clicks:

• Patients were asked by SMS whether they still needed their appointment.
• Patients were informed what would happen based on their response and asked to provide further information if they no longer required an appointment.
• Patients were also asked if they were willing to travel for care to share demand.

An SMS reminder was also sent to non-responding patients before the campaign closed.

With tens of thousands patients being successfully validated digitally, NECU could now prioritise reaching patients who failed to respond through alternative communications methods, or where additional information was required. This ensured that digitally excluded patients were also being validated, enabling NECU to deliver wait list validation at scale and pace.

Impact

NECU were able to validate more patients at a quicker rate, significantly reducing the administration effort required to validate each list. This digital-led wait list validation process also allowed NECU to better allocate appointments to patients needing them and support capacity planning for patients willing to travel for care. Successful digital communication gave patients who still required an appointment more reassurance that their care journey was being actively managed, improving the overall patient experience.

• 81,000 patients validated across 8 Scottish Health Boards and +30 specialities in less than 6 months.
• 9% of patients removed from waiting list.
• Boosted response rates to 97% from digitising the wait list validation process, with a 72% response rate in the first 24 hours through DrDoctor.
• Contacted 4.4x patients in 1/3 of the time.
• £3.57m saved in cost avoidance by digitising the wait list validation process.

"Before DrDoctor, we had to call patients multiple times before writing to them about their need for an appointment. Now we're able to validate thousands of patients in just a few clicks."

Richard Bell, Associate Director, NECU

Next steps for NECU

NECU now look to implement DrDoctor Assessments to better understand the needs of patients still requiring appointments, ensure they are seen in the most appropriate setting and further reduce waiting times.