UHP patient letters go digital!
Starting this October, UHP will be rolling out electronic patient letters to those patients that have a Patient Knows Best (PKB) account. This means, rather than waiting for their letters to arrive in the post, patients will immediately receive their communications from the hospital on their electronic devices. This change has primarily been implemented to improve patient experience, but the environmental savings are also undeniable…
This project will reduce the amount of paper that the Trust uses, as well as reduction in energy and ink use from printing. The project team have estimated that moving to electronic patient letters will save the Trust 3,420,000 sheets (or 17.1 tonnes of paper) over a four-year period! UHP uses recycled paper to print our patient letters, but even then, this will present a huge CO2 reduction of 12,483 kgCO2e*.
How will it work?
Patients that are on one of our waiting lists and have a Patient Knows Best account- either because they have created one directly or because they have accessed their hospital records through the NHS app- will receive a text message from us with a link to a webpage that explains this change. View our Patient electronic letters page
This change will automatically happen for over 50,000 UHP patients that hold a PKB account; patients wishing to continue receiving letters in the post can let us know by filling in a form accessible through the webpage indicated in the text message.
So as to ensure new letters are not missed, patients will receive an email from PKB notifying them when a new letter is available to read. The email will advise the patient to log into their account with their NHS details to read the communications which can be done via the NHS app or any web browser. As a failsafe, the letter will be sent in the post to the patient if they do not click on the link to read the letter in the first 48 hours of it being sent- it is important to us that our patients have every opportunity to access their hospital communications.
As we embark on our Electronic Patient record journey, we’re hoping our patients will embrace a digital way forward, particularly as this change is designed to improve patient experience and limit our impact on the environment. Receiving letters electronically will make it quicker for staff to communicate with patients, meaning patients will receive appointment information in a timelier manner, and we will be able to fill in slots at a shorter notice. Hopefully this will help to ease patient anxiety about hospital letters and the associated carbon and financial cost to the NHS!
