Formative Exploration of the Relationship Between Waiting Times and Attendance at General Adult Psychiatry Clinics, at a Hospital in Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust

Abstract

Introduction

An audit was done to assess new patient wait times. As part of this project we reviewed possible relationships between wait times and clinic attendance.

Objective

To examine available data, for possible explanations of patients’ attendance behaviour at outpatient clinics.

Aims

To identify possible correlation between length of waiting time for adult psychiatry appointments and status of attendance.

Method

Service Line: New patient referrals to adult outpatient psychiatry (January–December 2015)

Sample size: 401.

Results

Fig. 1 and Table 1 show wait times compared with clinic attendance outcome. Percentage attendance appeared to gradually fall as wait times increased; while cancellation (%) by the NHS, and DNAs (did not attend) by the patient, appeared to rise over time.

Conclusions

This review has demonstrated a possible correlation between wait time for a clinic appointment and how patients behave. The shorter a patient has to wait; it appears they are more likely to actually attend clinic. If so, this potentially has implications for discussions around possible reorganization of services, to improve engagement and outcomes, by coming up with innovative ways of reducing wait times.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

Fig. 1 Clinic attendance by waitband.

Table 1