Surprising benefits of remote clinics revealed
As an organisation, UHP continues to implement changes to our outpatient pathways to improve patient experience, support a greener service delivery and reduce unnecessary appointments, the latter of which contributes to a reduction in clinical risk. Some of the key areas of change are outlined below:
Non-Face to Face Appointments - These are appointments which are delivered either over the telephone or through an 'Attend Anywhere' video call. During 2023/24 we delivered 151,231 appointments through either telephone or video where 96% were delivered over the telephone. We remained in upper quartile performance nationally for our delivery of non-face to face appointments.
Virtual Appointments - These are appointments which are delivered without the patient being in attendance, replacing traditional face to face appointments, and the outcome of the review is then communicated to both the patient and GP. These appointments would be to directly support diagnosis, providing advice and or pathway planning / condition management.
As explained in our previous blog on telephone appointments, feedback from patients indicates that telephone consultation is often more convenient and less stressful as the anxiety associated with attending appointments face to face is eliminated.
Patient Initiated Follow Up (PIFU) – PIFU is a pathway that allows a patient / carer the opportunity to initiate a follow-up appointment when it is required. It moves away from traditional follow up pathways i.e. where clinicians may have reviewed a patient every 6 months / 1 year. During 2023-2204, 28,460 patients have been added to one UHP PIFU pathways, and only 6950 initiated an appointment. This means that only 3.6% of our total PIFU waiting list made contact to initiate their appointments!
All in all, these initiatives have saved the following:
- 5,474,562 patient travel miles saved, equivalent to going around the world 220 times
- 119,977 hours of patient time saved through avoided face to face appointments
- 69,949 car parking spaces saved
- A reduction of 1118.8 tonnes of CO2 emissions. It would take 588.5 hectares of forest a year to capture that amount of CO2.
We’re proud of these impressive stats and hope to keep innovating the pathways to make even more savings! For more info, please email the sustainability team at plh-tr.sustainability@nhs.net
