Press Release

21 March 2008

Patients in mid Essex can now book X-ray appointments using new electronic system

From today patients can arrange their X-ray appointment at St John’s hospital via an electronic booking system, saving them time in having to make phone calls.

St john’s is following in the footsteps of St Peter’s hospital in Maldon and St Michael’s in Braintree who already offer appointments via the electronic choose and book system.

The appointments are made using the Choose and Book system during the consultation with the patient’s GP.  This allows the patient to leave the GP surgery knowing when and where they will have their X-ray, rather than having to arrange an appointment by ringing each of the hospitals, to find the earliest appointment.

Richard Hammond, general manager for radiology, said: “ This is great news for the patients as it saves them a lot of time and worry as they can decide there and then when it is convenient for them to have their plain film X-ray.”

Choose and Book is a national electronic referral service, it gives patients a choice for their appointment.  Patient’s can book their appointment to see a clinician at a choice of date, place and time for their appointment.

Richard adds:” We were the first Trust in the country to offer patietns the opporuntiy to book their X-ray appointment directly via the Choose and Book system.  We now have released all  our plain film X-ray appointments to GP’s at all of our  hospital sites and will extend this to other diagnostic tests such as barium enemas and ultrasound screening later this year.”

ENDS

Media contact : Jo Triggs tel: (01245) 514235 | Mobile : 0790 005 4948