Change in SMS message delivery

Dear Patient,

We have been informed by our local NHS commissioners that funding for patient text messages will be reduced effective immediately. This is due to financial constraints that the NHS is facing nationally and these are measures to reduce spending.

This will mean that our ability to send text messages for appointment reminders, informing patients about result of investigations and requests to book appointments by us will be significantly limited. Therefore, we will only be using the text message service for limited purposes.

There are other ways that we can communicate with you. If you have the NHS app, we can send notifications and messages via this service. So, if you do not have the NHS app already, we will strongly recommend downloading it as it can help us to continue communicating with you.

We can also contact you via email-as these are free of charge. So if you have a valid email address, please inform the practice and we can update this on your records, so that we can continue to keep in touch. You can get in touch via our website and submit an online query.

Please note, as these changes are being made immediately by the local NHS commissioners our changes will take place straight away. We will not be sending text messages for any further appointments or reminders to book appointments after blood tests etc. If you have had investigations done and you do not have the NHS app or an up to date email, it will be your responsibility to contact the practice to get further information about your results.

For patient who do not have access to email or internet, we will continue to contact you on your landline as per our practice policy.