We’re excited to tell you about a community led appointment reminder project that’s really making a difference.

Thanks to our funding, patients are receiving appointment reminder telephone calls to help cut down on missed hospital visits.

Working in collaboration with Brent Carers, who support unpaid carers in the borough, their Back to Health Project volunteers call patients two weeks before their appointment to confirm they will attend or give London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust advance notice to reallocate the appointment to another patient.

Each volunteer can make up to 50 calls a day, including up to 190 calls a week for ophthalmology, around 30 a week for cardiology and endocrinology and approximately 80 for maxillofacial, and those numbers are growing.

Multilingual volunteers help reach more patients, and most are grateful for the reminders.

The volunteers really enjoy working on the project, as they learn new skills.

We’re delighted to fund this collaboration with a local community service to help improve NHS services.