A single, well-timed text message can change everything.
It can prevent a patient from missing an appointment. It can stop an unnecessary call to a booking line. And, when used at scale, it can free up millions of pounds in wasted time and resources across the NHS.
Long waits on booking lines and hospital switchboards. High call abandonment rates. Patients making repeat calls because they’ve had no update on their care. And millions of missed appointments each year because patients lack visibility over what’s happening and can’t easily confirm, rebook, or cancel.
In 2022 alone, the NHS saw 8.4 million missed outpatient appointments. That’s a loss of over £250 million in wasted clinical time - time that could have been spent on patients in need. At the same time, an average NHS Trust takes around 3,400 calls every day, many of them chasing appointments or test results.
Without better communication, the problem compounds: longer queues, higher abandonment rates, lower satisfaction, and more wasted resources.
Similar issues were faced by policing teams - but instead of hiring more staff, they decided to invest in technology.
“We knew that if we wanted to keep delivering a great service and reduce call wait times, we’d need to handle thousands more updates every week. Doing that with our existing systems would have meant hiring 31 full-time staff at a cost of £1.4 million a year. Instead, we invested in a secure digital portal with proactive SMS and email updates. People could log in, see real-time information, and get notified the moment something changed - without picking up the phone. It gave people the answers they needed instantly and freed our team to focus on the work that really mattered.” – Superintendent Rob Brind
When Thames Valley Police and Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary faced the same challenge, they built a secure digital communication system on Salesforce that allowed the public to:
A fast ROI. The solution paid for itself in less than a year. Every year since, it has saved policing teams £1.4 million in headcount costs and reduced inbound update calls by 163,000 annually.
Using our same approach, ICBs, or regional healthcare trusts within the NHS could create a portal to suit their needs to enable them to:
In policing, the introduction of SMS and portal access increased engagement per user from 4 to 7 visits in a year and raised satisfaction scores by 15%.
Simple, low-cost changes can have a huge impact. A London NHS trial showed that adding the cost of a missed appointment to SMS reminders cut non-attendance rates by up to 26%, saving a typical trust around 5,800 appointments a year - without a joined up approach to other areas. Now is the time to put proven ideas like this into practice.
And these are just two examples of what proactive communication can deliver. See the full picture of what policing forces achieved and what it means for the NHS.
The police didn’t try to solve every challenge at once – they chose one priority process and delivered it in weeks. The NHS could do the same, starting with updates to outpatient appointments or test result notifications.
In just a few weeks, a solution could be live and already reducing calls, cutting DNAs, and improving patient satisfaction. From there, the model can be rolled out across more services, delivering cumulative benefits year after year.
Proactive communication is one of the simplest, fastest ways to reduce missed appointments, cut call volumes, and improve patient satisfaction.
Our team can show you how to get a proven SMS and portal solution live across your services in weeks, not months.
Call us on +44 (0)203 743 8014 or provide your details, and we'll contact you within 24 hours.
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