User-Centred Design for patient letters at MSE NHS Trust
We helped Mid and South Essex NHS Trust improve patient experience and reduce the rates of non-attendance in their hospitals. We did this by making their appointment letters easier to read and understand.
The challenge
Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust (MSE) serves a large and diverse patient population across Essex. The area has an average reading age of 7 years and is home to some of the most vulnerable members of our society.
MSE is under increasing pressure to treat and care for more patients than ever. The systems and processes of the Trust are decentralised, confusing and struggle to meet the demands placed on them by modern society. Patient communication has, historically, suffered from the effects of these broken systems.
The Health Inequalities team at MSE realises the difference that user-centred design can make to the experience of their patients and to the efficiency of appointment administration across the Trust.
They needed our help to train others in the User-Centred Design (UCD) principles they knew would help solve many of their problems, beginning with patient letters.
What they say about working with Scroll
“Scroll brought the expertise that we needed to introduce a User-Centred approach to our patient communications. They have helped us embed a patient first culture and we are seeing real improvements in DNA rates. Our clinical teams are engaged and look at the world differently. They knew that communication needed to improve and now they know how to do it.”
Amy Donovan, Senior Programme Manager, Strategy Unit, MSEFT
The solution
We researched and surveyed MSE patients to learn about their experience with letters they’d received from MSE.
We used the data and insight from our discovery activities to design an accessible 2-hour training programme called Better Letters with UCD and delivered it to over 60 members of staff from across the trust.
We took the basic principles of UCD and plain English and taught staff how to use them to write better patient letters that met user needs
We supported several teams to rewrite appointment and clinical letters, demonstrating a pair writing approach with subject matter experts
We made recommendations for the future development of the Better Letters programme.
We recorded an online-accessible version of the training sessions and made all related documents available to the client after our time with them had ended.
How we worked
We provided a UCD and content design specialist who worked on a mostly remote basis. Training took place in person at MSE hospital sites.
We based our approach on a project recently completed by Scroll for Essex County Council, who recommended Scroll to the client.
Results
This work was well received by the client. Attendees of the training session recommended the training to the colleagues, and senior stakeholders were impressed by the seemingly simple solutions we presented to help drive down non-attendance rates.
We were successful in changing the perspectives of those we trained about how a successful letter is written, and how easy it can be to write effectively when you know who you’re writing for.
There is continued demand for training in Better Letters principles, and acknowledgement from senior stakeholders that accessible, user-first content is an important foundation in the new patient-facing software and technologies that MSE are rolling out.
Patient letters are clearer and more accessible, and are being positively received by patients and staff alike.