Patient Empowerment App, SHREWD WaitLess, Reduces A&E Attendances

Sarah’s Story:

Sarah first discovered WaitLess when her daughter injured her foot and needed medical attention. Upon arrival at their local A&E department, she was shocked to find it incredibly busy and worried they would have a lengthy wait before they were seen. Luckily, she downloaded WaitLess and was relieved to find another local hospital had much shorter waiting times, meaning, including travel time, they could be seen much sooner.

“My daughter was at a local church group when she tripped over, hurting her foot and I realised that she would need medical attention. Margate Hospital was absolutely crowded; the waiting time was about three hours because it was so rammed. Somebody happened to say that they were waiting for an x-ray for four hours already. I noticed a sign for the WaitLess app and downloaded it. I could then see what locations were still open and where was busy. It said Canterbury had a much shorter wait time so we went to KCH and there was only one other person waiting. We were actually seen in less than an hour.”

WaitLess is free and easy to use. I think it’s a great idea – I love it.

“I do first aid at sports events and WaitLess is great for that because if someone comes in with a minor injury, like a broken wrist, you can have a look at the surrounding area to see where has the shortest waiting time. I can then say, well you can go to Ashford and wait four hours, or you can go to Margate and wait five minutes!”.
“There’s a few of us who work together and we all have WaitLess on our phones. Obviously if it’s something serious we would call an ambulance, but for minor injuries it’s absolutely amazing. It saves a lot of bother for the hospital staff too because you don’t have people coming in to a busy A&E for something small. We could have sat for hours in A&E, but because I could see the waiting times, it saved my daughter an uncomfortable night sat on a chair. WaitLess is worth its weight in gold”.

WaitLess is patient-facing app that displays real-time queue numbers, wait times, travel time and site services information as well as the NHS England national pharmacy directory, empowering users to choose the fastest place to access urgent care services for minor emergencies.

• 11% reduction in minor injuries activity in A&E, specifically during busiest times
• 5% reduction in overall A&E attendances
• Supports patient-choice and improved patient satisfaction
• Supports the reduction of system pressure and breeches of urgent care targets
• Reduces unnecessary costs through the redirection of patients to less expensive care
• Free NHS England pharmacy directory available to download nationwide
• Enables urgent communication of provider site and service updates during national crisis