Patient waiting list: We want to hear from you
Patients on a waiting list at Gloucestershire Royal or Cheltenham General Hospitals are being contacted via text message or postal letter as part of our work to reduce the delays caused by the pandemic.
A great deal has already been done to reduce the waiting list and now we will be contacting patients to obtain further details. In the SMS text message, titled ‘GHFT-NHS,’ patients will receive a unique 4-digit pin. We’ll ask you to enter the pin and your date of birth so that you can log in and complete a short survey.
If we do not have a contact number for you on the hospital PAS system, a postal letter will be sent to you. In responding and completing this survey you will help us to reduce waiting times for our patients.
We would like to assure you that:
- Our communication will only ever ask questions relating to your care
- We will never ask for bank details or reference to money or payment
- We will never ask you for your name or address, however you will be able to update your details if they are not correct
- Our message will include a unique pin and we will ask you to input your date of birth only to log in
- If you do not respond to the text message, we will write to you asking for completion of the paper survey
- A business reply envelope will be included to allow the return of the survey without any cost to you. The return address will be in Macclesfield – this is where our team are collating your responses.
Professor Mark Pietroni, Medical Director, said: “We recognise that some patients have been waiting a long time and we know how hard this can be.
We are determined to do everything we can to treat as many people as possible and to reduce waiting times. Over the past 6 months considerable progress has been made as a result of additional appointments and operations being offered and weekends for example.
We still have a long way to go to get waiting times back to the length they were before the pandemic and contacting patients digitally will help us to do this as efficiently as possible. If you do receive a message from ‘GHFT-NHS’ please do respond by completing the survey. Alternatively, if you receive a letter, we would also encourage you to complete and return this at the earliest opportunity.
The public continue to be incredibly understanding and we would like to thank them once again for their ongoing patience.”