Cumbria Northumberland Tyne and Wear NHS (CNTW) Foundation Trust

CNTW started the process of deploying OneConsultation via a pilot stage just before the start of the pandemic in March 2020. This meant The Trust was in a strong position for a full launch on the 6th of April, just three weeks after ‘lockdown’ was announced by the Government.

Take-up was rapid. In the first full month, 400 clinicians had access to the service and over 5,000 video consultations were completed. Service adoption has accelerated rapidly thereafter. In the last 14 months (as measured at the end of June 2021), CNTW has conducted 52,494 online consultations using the OneConsultation platform. Currently, the solution is available to 141 teams across the Trust with 3,151 staff having access to the solution. The Trust now averages 3,768 online consultations per month with CNTW having now resumed some face-to-face consultations.

Feedback from both service users and staff has been high. When asked if they were satisfied with the overall experience of today’s video call, 6,455 service users responded with either “strongly agree” (68%) or “agree” (28%) – a combined 96% overall satisfaction rate. These high satisfaction rates are reflected in the fact that 93% of patients using it said they would be willing to receive future mental health care by video. Such high satisfaction rates point favourably to continued high use as CNTW moves to a ‘blended’ model where service users can choose from either virtual or in-person appointments.

Another benefit that the Trust is continuing to measure is a reduction in CO2 emissions. From a sample of service users who responded to the patient survey between April and October 2020, it found that 24,935.3 miles were travelled by 1,547 service users. CNTW also estimates that almost one million miles of staff travel could be saved annually from video consultations. Tracking the carbon savings from both staff and service users will be a key part of the project moving forward.