Heartbeat: Signing up to a better patient experience

March 26, 2021

A project to improve signage across all Trust sites leading to a better patient experience is now complete.

Led by Victoria Williams from the patient access team, it ensures signage and directions in patient letters and texts now matches what they see when they visit our sites. The patient access team worked alongside estates and the improvement team on the project.

Explaining the need for the improvements, Victoria said: “We wanted to ensure that the patient journey was seamless and easy as possible right from the start. We found that although we were signposting patients to particular areas, this didn’t match what they were seeing when they were on site.

“Patients would complain about being lost, and this would lead to them being late for their appointments. Many would have to stop staff for directions. The point of the project was to alleviate this and improve the patient experience from the moment they arrived on site.”

The 12-month project started with Victoria alongside colleagues from estates and the improvement team walking around each site to check signage and directions to flag up any initial problems.

Colleagues from across the Trust were asked to voice any issues they had spotted. Victoria added: “We had good engagement from colleagues about areas where signage needed to be improved.

“We were able to act upon this information and change signs. It’s undoubtedly had a positive effect, and we are also hoping that it will mean that patients are more likely to attend appointments on time with the improved information on directions.”