Health Call digital solution aims to reduce waiting lists

Health Call has launched a waiting list validation tool to support NHS trusts achieve elective recovery.

NHS-owned digital health company Health Call has launched a new solution that aims to reduce lengthy waiting lists and reduce patient waiting times. It is able to support healthcare providers in reallocating unwanted appointments to other patients who need them, helping to streamline services.

With more than seven million patients sitting in the NHS backlog of appointments, clinical capacity needs to be maximised as much as possible.

The waiting list validation tool allows trusts to check in with patients en masse to determine if they still require their appointment. This gives trusts a better understanding of the true size of their waiting list.

It is not uncommon for patients to wait so long for an appointment, that by the time it comes around it is no longer needed. If the patient fails to notify the trust of this, then it results in a did not attend – which doesn’t allow the trust to make full use of its capacity.

The cloud-based solution eliminates the need for manual appointment validation processes, such as telephoning patients. Healthcare teams are able to instead send questionnaires to patients via SMS, asking if they still need the appointment and if their symptoms have changed.

Claire Graham, head of customer success at Health Call, said: “Our digital validation solution aims to help trusts significantly reduce their waiting lists by checking in with patients at scale to proactively manage if they still require their appointment and if there have been any changes.

“This way, trusts can accurately assess the true size of waiting lists and avoid unnecessary appointments that patients might no longer need.

“By eliminating manual appointment validation processes and leveraging digital questionnaires, we can streamline services to ensure that appointments are allocated to patients who genuinely need them.”

The tool dovetails with the Health Call patient engagement platform, MyHealthCall Pep. Conveniently it also doesn’t require any local hardware to be installed on-site.