By Tim Ferguson, 24 January 2008 16:34
NEWS
The NHS online referral system, Choose and Book, has recently passed six million patient appointments made since its initial introduction in 2004.
In the second week of January, the total number of appointments made through the system had increased by one million since November 2007, according to NHS tech agency, Connecting for Health.
Choose and Book allows patients to book appointments and referrals online and choose the place, date and time that suits them best.
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They are given a choice of hospital and the next available appointment, meaning the process of waiting to hear for an appointment can be avoided.
All NHS hospitals now use Choose and Book while 90 per cent of GPs in England are also on the system, making it a standard way of managing referrals.
Choose and Book is one of numerous tech projects under the £12.4bn NHS National Programme for IT (NPfIT).
Other projects include the Electronic Prescription Service and the Spine patient records service, which is now beginning to be rolled out.
Richard Granger, the director general of NPfIT is due to step down later this year, leaving a significant legacy.
Comments
There are 2 comments. Join the discussion
1. Mary Hawking
unfortunately, some Trusts seem unable to resist changing appointments - sometimes many times - after a patient has made an appointment to suit them!
There is another problem: when it looks as though the 18 week wait might be breached, Trusts openly declare a speciality closed until their target is safe once more: the GP remains responsible for ensuring that the patient gets an appointment!
To add to the problems with C&B - you cannot use it if your demographics are not openly available on PDS (the spine), and many Trusts are refusing to accept referrals made by any other means.
Some problems are in how it is used: others seem to have been designed in.
2. Richard
I had an appointment in early January 08:
After waiting several months, I had planned my diary around this NHS appointment;
The day before, the hospital phoned to cancel the appointment (apparently, they can't use email or SMS - I've asked).
This morning, I've received a letter with a new appointment - in June 08!
Every previous "appointment" with this hospital has been postponed, sometimes more than once, usually by months.
One appointment was suddenly cancelled, then re-instated, within a few hours.
The vast sums being spent on NHS IT may improve communications - although the phone & post are already adequate - but will do nothing to fix the NHS's underlying problems.
By diverting so much money, the NHS IT program is bound to impact on the medical budgets.