Patients attending outpatient appointments at the Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust can now be sent reminders via text message.
The new service started as a pilot in mid January and within a week was already proving to be a success.
Messages are sent via NHS net who provide a free text messaging service, to mobile phones reminding patients of the date, time and location of their appointment and includes a number to call if there is a problem.
Only people who have given consent to be contacted via text will receive messages and so far ten per cent of those contacted via this method have called to say they no longer need their appointment or to change it.
The aim of the project is to cut the number of missed appointments each year. Karen Murray, Project Lead, said: “Even if we just prevent 20 missed appointments we have had a success and it will pay for the setting up of the service.”
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