Photo of buses, vans and care vehicles on the roads in Glasgow, Scotland.
getty
Travel issues, communication issues and stress are preventing patients across the UK from attending hospital appointments.
Eight million people missed scheduled medical appointments last year, costing the country’s public health service around 960 million pounds ($1.25 million), according to patient engagement firm DoctorDoctor.
The company surveyed 5,003 people who missed at least one appointment in the past two years and said patients face many barriers to coming to the hospital.
Almost all of those surveyed (93%) said they wanted to attend the appointment. However, half of respondents said transportation was an issue. Some patients were referred to hospitals far from home, while others could not afford to pay for public transportation.
More than a quarter of respondents said they were worried about losing their job or income, and 17% said religious or cultural commitments were getting in the way.
Mental health issues were also a contributing factor to school refusal, with more than 40% of patients feeling anxious before their consultation.
Women were slightly more likely than men to miss appointments, but they were also more likely to cite stress and anxiety as a reason.
Almost one in five patients said they had abandoned their appointment due to misunderstandings about their appointment, such as being sent the wrong details or having their time changed.
Nearly a third (29%) of patients said they tried to reschedule an appointment but were unable to get through by phone, and 19% said they found the process too complicated.
The digital health landscape in the UK is fragmented and porous, with many different providers using many different digital services. Organizations are often at different stages of digitalization, and patients can fall into the gaps.
“It’s very frustrating to be told you didn’t show up at your appointment time when the booking system clearly isn’t working,” said Rachel Donovan, a 29-year-old Londoner who was removed from the hospital’s treatment list after making an appointment. spoke. accident.
“I was recently discharged from the hospital because I had a test result appointment scheduled before the actual test and missed the appointment without knowing it,” she said in an emailed statement. “I chased it twice, but nothing came back and I had no idea what was going on.”
More than half (52%) of patients said they knew that missed appointments cost the public health system significant amounts of money.
However, barriers such as transportation, communication, and anxiety can cause patients to repeatedly miss appointments, ultimately contributing to long waiting lists across the country. According to the DoctorDr study, nearly half (46%) of patients who missed their first appointment ended up missing another appointment.
The company, which provides UK hospitals with a digital and AI-enabled booking platform, says making it easier for patients to book and change appointments will improve overall attendance rates.
“Over the past 15 years, many sectors of the economy have been fundamentally reshaped by digital technology, but the NHS is on the cusp of digital transformation.” written in a recent report.
But even though it has faced a decade of “opportunity losses,” a “technological tilt” will increase productivity and help connect hospitals and community systems.
Innovations such as AI have “huge potential” to transform care, and “life science breakthroughs” could lead to new treatments.
Government ministers have said they want to modernize the country’s health system. According to CityAM, Health Secretary Wes Streeting is discussing how to make care records more accessible across the organization and how to develop an app for patients in the public health system.
