The challenge
Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (LTHT) is one of the largest UK acute hospital trusts, treating 1.5 million patients across 7 hospitals annually.
Delivering the right treatment, at the right time, efficiently
As part of the Trust’s post-pandemic Operational Transformation, and with the successful implementation of a modern call centre solution, Outpatient Transformation is one of the key strands. The Trust needed a modern, efficient and sustainable digital solution that would improve interactions — by creating more capacity for patient self-service — provide a better patient experience and optimise productivity.
Managing 5,000 outpatient letter templates across seven hospitals was extremely challenging. Audit and governance were difficult, errors caused delays or sent patients home, and training for new employees was time-consuming. LTHT needed a solution to reduce the time to manage, print and mail appointment letters as well as the associated costs.
Manual record keeping and query resolution was cumbersome, with back office teams left frustrated as they managed, communicated and rearranged patient appointments. By streamlining and digitising these processes, LTHT could boost efficiency and reduce errors, whilst also allowing for colleagues to undertake more patient-focused work. Plus, delayed letters and a shortage of real-time information meant clinicians were unable to easily respond to changes — leading to workarounds and even double bookings.
“It was a partnership that we worked with Netcall. They were on every call with us, they were at the Board with us, they’ve done everything on the NHS App with us. They really helped us deploy at scale so we’re up to about 92% of services now.”
Rob Child
Programme Manager (Outpatient CSU), Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust