World’s first patient-controlled service to 'revolutionise' appointments at Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust

Designed to improve patient experience, Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust has launched a new digital-first service involving the Patients Know Best portal which will do away with the need for letters.

Patients who sign up to the award-winning innovation will initially be able to access most of their outpatient appointments at Harrogate District Hospital online.

Over the coming months, additional features such as the ability to request cancellations and amendments to appointments will be rolled out.

To date, more than 20,000 patients at Harrogate District Hospital are using PKB, with over 1,200 appointment letters being sent via the patient portal each week.

Dr Jacqueline Andrews, Executive Medical Director and Executive Lead for Digital at Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust said: “The patient portal is a new way to receive your appointment letters as soon as the appointment is made, so no more waiting for the letter to arrive in the post."

Over the next couple of weeks, HDFT will be sending an email or SMS text to 68,000 patients inviting them to sign up for the patient portal, Patients Know Best (PKB), which is free to use and is accessed via the NHS app.

In an additional benefit, HDFT surgeons are also using the PKB patient portal to deliver personalised post-procedure videos to their patients, providing them with reassurance and information about the different stages of their recovery.

The UK’s largest patient portal and the world’s first patient-controlled health records system is the work of PKB, a social enterprise and a certified B Corporation, founded with the social mission to empower patients with access to their medical records.

Dr Andrews emphasises that, if the new digital service was not the best way for the hospital to communicate with any patients, HDFT would continue to send correspondence in paper format in the post.

For more information, Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust, patients should visit the NHS Trust’s website and search for PKB at: https://www.hdft.nhs.uk/