Chaotic communication by NHS in England ‘causing treatment delays’

Photograph: Peter Byrne/PA

Chaotic communication by the NHS in England is causing harmful delays to treatment and endangering patient health, according to research.

Widespread communication problems that leave patients and staff scrambling to find their referrals, missing appointments, or receiving late diagnoses have been uncovered in a study by the Demos thinktank, the Patients Association, and the PMA, a professional membership body for healthcare workers.

In a poll of 2,000 members of the public and NHS staff across England in October, more than half said they had experienced poor communication from the health service in the past five years, with one in 10 saying their care had been affected as a result.

The research also found that over the last year, 18% had their care, or the care of an immediate family member, delayed or affected because they were referred to the wrong service, while 26% said they or a close family member had been inconvenienced because they were given the date and time of an appointment without enough notice.

Miriam Levin, the director of participatory programmes at Demos, said that despite the great esteem and pride in the NHS, patients found navigating the system frustrating and stressful. “We heard countless stories of critical appointments missed, diagnoses not shared or shared too late, and referrals for treatment that went missing. This leads to real harm,” she said.

The polling also revealed that more than one quarter of people polled have had to chase up referrals themselves to ensure they were seen, while nearly one fifth did not know who to contact about care or treatment once a referral had been made.

About half of participants said such poor communication made them stressed and anxious, while four in 10 said it made them feel angry. In addition, 8% had not been notified about something important relating to their treatment; 9% received a mistake in a communication; and 16% had not been kept properly updated while waiting.

Bad communication caused nearly half of respondents to worry about quality of care, while more than a quarter felt concerned staff time and NHS money were being wasted, the researchers found. Nearly a third felt it had damaged their trust in the health service.

Rachel Power, the chief executive of the Patients Association, said: “This report shows communications, and the administration that supports it, are not ‘nice to haves’. Good communication is fundamental to the ability of patients and healthcare professionals to work in partnership.”

The report calls on the government to recognise the “critical importance of communication” between the health service and patients and for greater investment in administrative staff and systems, such as by recruiting more care coordinators and expanding the role of the NHS app.

An NHS England spokesperson said: “With staff working extremely hard to cope with increased demand across the NHS, high-quality communications for patients and those working in the health service remain of the utmost importance to maintain patient safety and to ensure the best possible care and service delivery for all.

“This report sadly fails to recognise that the NHS is already significantly expanding the care navigator workforce by training more than 7,500 staff, rolling out new software to bring together existing NHS data and deliver better joined-up care, and enabling millions more patients to access their health records via the NHS app.”