Replacing a paper patient pathway with a secure portal

The situation

What was going wrong

• 01

  Intake forms were completed on paper at reception and re-typed into the practice system.

• 02

  Consent records were held in physical files, making retrieval slow and evidencing difficult.

• 03

  Appointment reminders were made by phone, and no-show rates were high.

• 04

  Clinicians across six sites had broader record access than their role required.

Our approach

What we did, and why

1. 01

   Started with the consent and access model

   Before designing screens we agreed, with the group's clinical governance lead, exactly which role may see which data and what must be recorded when access occurs.

2. 02

   Digitised intake with clinical review retained

   Patients complete structured intake before arrival. Submissions queue for clinical review rather than writing directly to the record, keeping a professional in the loop.

3. 03

   Rolled out one clinic at a time

   The first site ran in parallel with paper for three weeks. Issues found there were resolved before the remaining five clinics went live.

4. 04

   Designed for the least confident user

   Testing with older patients drove larger targets, plainer language, and a no-account access route by secure link, which materially raised completion rates.

The outcome

What changed

Administrative handling time per new patient fell from roughly 22 minutes to 9. Automated reminders reduced no-shows enough to recover meaningful clinic capacity each week. Access is now least-privilege by role and fully logged, which shortened the group's next information governance review considerably.

22 → 9 min

Admin time per new patient

−41%

Appointment no-shows

83%

Intake completed before arrival