Hospital Trust to offer booked appointments

2 November 2000

The West Suffolk Hospitals NHS Trust will be introducing a new booking service for patients.

The move is part of the Government's plan to replace all waiting lists with booked appointments by March 2005. To help introduce the new patient-friendly booking system the trust has received £114,000 from NHS central funds.

Booked appointments offer patients the opportunity to agree a date and time to come into hospital which best suits them.

"In the past we have told patients when they should come into hospital. The aim of the new system is to meet the needs of patients, not ask patients to fit the needs of the West Suffolk Hospital," said Paul Thacker, Outpatients Services Manager.

"Patients will eventually benefit from the convenience of having their appointment or their operation when it fits their family, caring, working or holiday commitments. Where this system has been introduced in other hospitals the number of patients who fail to turn up for their outpatient appointment has been greatly reduced. This has benefits for the NHS as a whole" he said.

The introduction of booked admissions has encouraged the trust to re-organise the way it works. Initially the system will be introduced on a limited basis starting with some patients who require day surgery and have their operation and return home on the same day.

Editor's notes

The trust is part of the third wave projects. The Government introduced the first wave of 24 booked admissions pilots in September 1998. A further 60 projects were launched by the Prime Minister in September 1999.