Our surgical division secretary Jacqui Howarth came up with her money-saving idea when she was a patient with us.  

She was in ophthalmology at CRH and was struck by just how many paper patient information leaflets were around covering a wide variety of conditions and treatments. Yet she says she would have gladly taken a digital version of her patient information leaflet if it had been offered.

She reckons savings could be made if more patients were offered the digital versions of  the paper leaflets which can go out-of-date before they are used up. Patients can access them on their technology like smart phones and iPads etc so it would also reduce print costs too.

She said: “ I would have gladly taken an online version of the leaflet if I'd been offered it. And I think we need to get smarter as a provider.  Seeing lots of paper around does seem old-fashioned. I know many people still need and prefer a paper version, but surely in this day and age there are savings to be made by using the on-line versions more widely.  We are a forward thinking Trust and I believe this would show patients that we can move with the times.”

Numbers of printed leaflets are falling year-on-year which is a good trend for the Trust. Our print costs have reduced by half since we had a major review of the written information for patients policy two years ago, so we are already moving in the right direction. We reckon knowing that our colleagues like a challenge, we could get even better at saving on print costs.

Useful information

Patients and members of the public can access, print and save our A4 style leaflets from our CHFT website - and colleagues can download or email them to patients too during their consultations or on discharge, from the repository.

Our policy on Producing Written Information for Patients is in the policies and documents library - search written or click here. It explains what to do if you need to have a patient information leaflet produced.

Our approved leaflets are stored in The Patient Information Leaflet Repository. You can get to it via the policies and documents library - look for the green Other Systems button.

The longer-term plan is that eventually patients will be able to access information leaflets via a patient portal on EPR.