Delivery of patient letters: an opportunity to improve patient access and productivity

Receiving physical letters can play an essential role in enabling patients to access healthcare.
Reviewing how patient letters are managed and delivered offers opportunities to improve patient access and experience, free up clinical time and reduce costs.
Ofcom is consulting on changes to Royal Mail deliveries, and it will be important to ensure trusts are ready for those changes.
Trusts can also make better use of the Economy Access mail service to reduce their costs without compromising patient experience.
Royal Mail will be deploying a new NHS-specific barcode indicator to help optimise the delivery of NHS letters in times of national disruption, such as a national pandemic and local service disruption.
This briefing will help NHS trusts to understand upcoming reforms, consider improvements to patient communications and optimise their use of available postal services.