From Geoff Williamson

To Mr Ross Simmonds. Information Consultant, Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust

Reference: Texting System in Use at Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust.

Dear Mr Simmonds

Many many thanks for proviiding details of the summary of the excellent text messaging system in use at Frimley Health and which typically provides – at a single system entry - full details of upcoming appointments 8 days, 3 days and the day before the appointment. This compares very favourably to the use of texting by my local GPS surgery.

From: Ross Simmonds, Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust

Dear Mr Williamson,

Thank you for your positive comments on our text reminder system at Frimley Park Hospital. It is a valued service by our patients and seems to be well appreciated. Each NHS organisation has their own arrangements in place for sending reminders, as there is no national provision of this service. The process in place here is a locally built automated central system based upon Microsoft Office and runs on existing PCs (and therefore no direct hardware or software costs to our organisation, as there is a national MS Office licence in the NHS) and it takes appointment data (and the patient's mobile number) from our patient systems and then creates a reminder message based upon the needs of the particular department. So for example, some departments have chosen a reminder 7 days before, others 3 days before, and the content of the reminder can be set per department, although we do have to consider how much information is included in the message in case the message goes to the wrong recipient (e.g. if the patient has given us the wrong phone number). The system is automated and therefore staff do not have to 'use' the system for the messages to send. The system creates the reminders in the form of an email, which is then sent securely to the company DrDoctor (www.drdoctor.co.uk). For each email they receive, they automatically convert it into an SMS message and send immediately to the patient's mobile number, and this service is chargeable to the Trust for each message sent. Frimley Park has currently procured a fairly basic service, in that the patient cannot interact further via SMS e.g. they cannot cancel or rebook the appointment using their phone, however, a more feature-rich service is being considered for the future that would allow this. There are a number of suppliers that now offer such services to the NHS.

Whilst not working within the IT department, I am probably the best contact for our system.

kind regards

Ross

Ross Simmonds

Information Consultant

Frimley Health Foundation Trust