Patients offered Saturday hospital appointments

Patients coming for out-patient appointments at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital are being given the option of a Saturday appointment on 30 June as a one-off initiative to see if they would prefer this to a weekday.

“There has been a lot of feedback from patients lately about healthcare being available to patients during evening and weekends. We decided to put this to the test to see if patients really would prefer to come here on a Saturday than take time out of their working week,” said Professor David Scott, Divisional Clinical Director for Medicine. “The indications so far are that the Saturday appointments have been welcomed by our patients. If this initiative is a success, Saturday clinics could become a permanent fixture for some specialties.”

Five medical specialties are providing outpatient clinics for one day only on 30 June, with consultants, nurses and admin staff all making time to see patients. The patients will be asked to complete a short questionaire to assist us in evaluating the initiative.

Currently patients on the waiting list are telephoned up to six weeks before they are due to see a specialist, to offer a choice of dates and times for their appointments. Until now these dates and times have only been available from Monday to Friday .

The medical specialties holding clinics on 30 June are Rheumatology, Gastroenterology, Dermatology, Medicine for the Elderly and Endocrinology  

Ophthalmology are also holding Saturday clinics on 23 June, 7th July and 21 July