Synertec’s partnership with
Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust
“If I raise a call, the ongoing support is absolutely brilliant and it's quick. It's effective.”
Key Takeaways
- A streamlined communication process for the Breast Screening programme at HUTH, resulting in significant cost savings and efficient delivery of appointment letters.
- A new project to enhance the process of how GP Reports are sent to GP Surgeries , leading to improved record-keeping and better coordination of healthcare services.
The collaborative partnership between Synertec and Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust’s (HUTH) Breast Screening Programme focuses on a comprehensive invitation process, targeting over 140,000 women in the area. Appointment invites are sent to women aged 50-70, who are registered with a local GP surgery, ensuring they are scheduled for a Breast Screening appointment every three years. The trust also ensures that younger women, who are at high risk are also invited to be screened.
All Breast Screening patient communications for HUTH are sent through Synertec, including appointment letters, first time appointment letters, second appointment letters, rebook appointment letters, change of appointment letters, result letters and assessment letters.
Before working with Synertec, the trust’s admin team would manually print and post the thousands of letters by hand. Lesley Peacock, Humberside Breast Screening Programme Manager describes the previous process, “We used to have all these huge printers on site; the team would take the letters off and put them through these awful letter folding machines. They always used to break down, so we would have all these letters sat in piles. Then someone would physically be franking them, before putting them into the mail. That's why Synertec were brought in.” Synertec’s in-house production sites mean they can process and distribute the letters for HUTH quickly and efficiently. Lesley explains “The cost efficiency is massive - the cost of paper, printing and mailing through the trust was a lot more than what it is through Synertec. And then it's the manpower as well. We've saved so much time.”
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We can now send results first class that day, and ladies are receiving their letters within 48 hours. So that's a massive plus. It also gives our radiologists more time, and we know we can meet our KPI’s.
- Lesley Peacock, Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust
Key Benefits
One of the other big advantages HUTH have found working with Synertec is they can cater for the crucial holding rules needed for the appointment letters. Lesley explains “Nationally it's been proven that uptake for Breast Screening appointments is higher when the letters are sent out 21 days prior to the appointment date, the rate drops if they are mailed out further away, or closer to the appointment.” Synertec is able to lighten the administrative burden from the trust, enabling them to have more time to focus on other important responsibilities, while ensuring that the correspondence reaches the recipients within the scheduled timeframe.
Another critical, time-related target put in place nationally for the Breast Screening programme is that women must receive their result letter within three weeks. Lesley describes “The screening images need to be read by two radiologists. Previously it was very hard to achieve these time targets, but now we have a set up where if we process an appointment before 12:30, we can send it first class that day and ladies are receiving their letters within 48 hours. So that's a massive plus. It also gives our radiologists more time, and we know we can meet our KPI’s.” The importance of getting these communications to patients as quickly as possible has a direct impact on a woman’s health and wellbeing.
HUTH have implemented text message reminders to patients regarding their upcoming Breast Screening appointment. This is a mandatory requirement for Breast Screening programmes, however Lesley informs us how “some Breast Screening units are finding it hard to implement text message reminders with old systems/software and have not yet outsourced it to other companies”.
A study published in The British Journal of Cancer found that “Women who received a text message reminding them about their Breast Screening appointment were 20% more likely to attend, than those who were not texted.” The significant improvement on attendance shows how important it is that this method of communication is used. Lesley explains how the process works with Synertec. “I would recommend working with Synertec with text messages. It's simple. We send our text message reminders out two days before. We upload a file; the software scoops it up within 30 seconds and text messages are done. And there is more that we could do with this, hopefully we can explore doing more with SMS in the future.”
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It’s early days, but it’s opened a huge window, every GP in the area will have women’s Breast Screening results on their systems too.
- Lesley Peacock, Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust
New Developments
HUTH and Synertec have recently worked together on a new project to improve how GP surgeries in the Humberside area receive Breast Screening results. Via the old system, the screening results of women who were registered at the same GP would be formed into one continuous pdf and sent to the surgery. This would result in the administrative staff at the practices having to manually upload this information. It was also not compulsory for them to do this. This meant that not all GP’s would have a record of a patient’s Breast Screening results. Synertec have been able to format this pdf so that only one patients’ result is on one sheet. Now this can be automatically scanned by the software at the GP surgeries, where the patients NHS number is matched and uploaded onto the patients record.
“It’s early days, but it’s opened a huge window, every GP in the area will have women’s Breast Screening results. So if a patient needs to know information on previous scan, GP’s will have this information on their systems too.” Lesley Peacock tells us. “Going forward from this we can start working with the GP’s. We may be able to send text message reminders from their systems to women who missed their appointment.” The aim is to have a more cohesive system in place between Breast Screening Programmes and GP’s, so that women can have easy access to their Breast Screening records. In addition to this, GP’s may have closer relationships with their patients, and therefore could be able to explain and encourage women to attend screenings, as they will now have the details on their previous Breast Screening appointments. The Breast Screenings uses X-rays called mammograms which can detect signs of cancer, even when they are too small to see or feel. This highlights the critical significance of screenings at an early stage, when cancer is more treatable.
Audit reports are sent from Synertec to HUTH, to show a comprehensive overview of the communications sent and received by patients. “We review them daily because it’s imperative that we see if there’s any errors. We know the ones we were expecting to go out, whether that’s letters, SMS, or GP reports. And if there’s any issues, we flag this up with Synertec and they get back to us so quickly” Lesley explains. She continues, “If I raise a call, the ongoing support is absolutely brilliant and it's quick. It's effective.”
Synertec are pleased to assist HUTH in ensuring the timely delivery of these vital communications to women in the Humberside area. They are thrilled to add value and see the tangible impact that this has for both HUTH and their patients.
Moving forward, Synertec look to continue working with the trust to improve processes and provide support to the teams to further increase time savings and efficiency.
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