Care Opinion

Text size

Theme

Language

Videos in BSL or ISL
Help with language translation
Help with reading or listening

Notice of appointments

Posted By mr average

"Notice of appointments"

About: Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital (Wonford) / Trauma and orthopaedics

(as a service user),

I have received a paper appointment letter, which arrived after my appointment. Luckily I had the date already in my diary. Why is the NHS still sending out expensive inefficient paper letters when the vast majority of us have phones or computers? my doctor, physio, dentist etc all send reminder texts or emails. There is so much illogical waste in the NHS.

More about:
Do you have a similar story to tell? Tell your story & make a difference ››

Responses

Response from Tom Roberts, Head of Outpatients (Eastern Services), Outpatients (Eastern Services), Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust 2 weeks ago
Tom Roberts
Head of Outpatients (Eastern Services), Outpatients (Eastern Services),
Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust

Submitted on 25/07/2025 at 10:27
Published on Care Opinion at 10:51

Hi,

Thank you for this feedback. As a Trust we changed our processes last year so that if you are signed up to the MY CARE patient portal, you can receive your appointment letters digitally, which will come as soon as the appointment is booked. We have a system that lets us see if the letter has been read in MY CARE, and if it hasn't after a certain timeframe, we will send out a paper letter as a fall back.

We also have a text reminder service which sends texts about your appointment in advance. We will be adding functionality to this within MY CARE soon, which will allow patients to confirm or request a change to their appointment.

More information about MY CARE, including how to sign up, is available on our Trust website here: https://www.royaldevon.nhs.uk/patients-visitors/my-care/

If you are able to provide any further details about the clinic and appointment this was for, I can look into this in more detail, I am contactable at thomas.roberts20@nhs.net. Sometimes if appointments are booked at shorter notice, the letter will not reach a patient in time due to the time needed for it to be delivered.

Best wishes,

Tom Roberts

Head of Outpatients (Eastern Services)

  • {{helpful}} {{helpful == 1 ? "person thinks" : "people think"}} this response is helpful
Opinions
Next Response j
Previous Response k