While working on a geriatric ward I noticed many of the patients were not responsible for their own care and that often it was done by family/community teams. Thus when they came into hospital they were often missing planned outpatient appointments/investigations which were scheduled for them. This led to poor patient care and led to increased missed appointments. Imperatively many of these patients were vulnerable and it would improve their quality of life greatly to have all investigations while an inpatient rather than coming back repeatedly for single appointments.

I was able to assess the extent of this issue by discussing a model with our IT team in which they ran a model which displayed all patients on geriatric wards who had upcoming outpatient appointments/investigations. I then discussed with local teams on wards and decided that doctors, head nurses and ward clerks would be notified twice weekly about upcoming appointments. My analysis was based on looking at how many of those who had appointments attended them and if they did not why so.

From the findings it was seen that this was beneficial for doctors to understand what investigations/appointments patients had. It also made life easier for nursing and ward staff as previously they were either told about appointments at the last moment or would have to search for them manually. Thus as the Whittington is now moving to a fully electronic system, one part of this system will have upcoming appointments displayed for all professionals to see. This work contributes to leadership as it shows how simple interventions can have mass effect on patient care, ease work for staff and improve clinic attendance.