Healthcare leaders know patient communications need to improve.
The hard part is making that change without adding more admin, confusing frontline teams, or creating another system nobody wants to use.
In this article, we look at what Ramsay Health Care UK learned while modernising patient communications across 34 hospitals, and what other healthcare teams can take from their approach: map the real process, design around patient preference, give frontline teams visibility, and build the business case around more than postage.
These themes were explored by Kareen Jones, EPR and Operational Excellence Manager at Ramsay Health Care UK, during a fireside chat at the HETT Leaders Summit, a healthcare technology conference where NHS leaders and digital innovators come together to shape the future of health and care transformation. While the discussion focused on Ramsay’s experience, the lessons apply to any large organisation trying to improve communications at scale.
Watch the fireside chat with Kareen Jones from Ramsay Health Care UK, where she discusses patient preference, frontline confidence and what it takes to change communications across a large healthcare organisation.
Patient communications are now an operational issue
Patient communications affect far more than the information being sent. They influence how much time administrative teams spend managing appointments, answering patient queries and handling communication-related tasks. They can also affect appointment attendance, call volumes, patient confidence and how easily teams can manage capacity across services.
For Ramsay Health Care UK, the challenge was straightforward. Patients were being asked how they wanted to be contacted. The organisation then needed a practical way to support those preferences across 34 hospitals, different services and a large consultant network. That is why patient communications are increasingly being viewed as an operational issue, not just an administrative one.
The process often looks simpler from the top
Most healthcare leaders understand that patient communications matter. What is harder to see is the amount of manual work sitting behind the process.
Letters need printing. Templates need maintaining. Information needs checking. Documents may be copied, pasted, folded, put into envelopes and passed through internal steps before they leave the building. If a patient says they have not received something, staff need a way to understand what happened. Individually, none of these tasks look especially significant. Together, they create a process that takes time and attention every day.
Kareen explained that communication challenges were visible to senior leaders at Ramsay Health Care UK, particularly when considering rising postal costs, sustainability and operational efficiency. But the people closest to the process were often seeing the detail first because they were dealing with it every day.
That is where the real friction usually appears.
What actually happens when a patient communication is created?
One of the strongest messages from the fireside chat was simple: assume nothing.
When Ramsay Health Care UK started reviewing its communication processes, it found significant variation between sites. While hospitals were working to the same standards, the reality of how communications were managed often differed from one location to another.
That is not unusual.
Over time, teams develop ways of working that help them solve local challenges. New templates are created. Additional steps are introduced. A process that makes sense in one hospital becomes slightly different in another. Nobody has to deliberately create that complexity. It can build up quietly over time. That is why process mapping matters. Before looking at technology or suppliers, healthcare organisations need to understand what actually happens when a communication is created.
Who writes it? Who checks it? How is consent recorded? How is the channel selected? Who sends it? Who can see what happened afterwards? Those answers often reveal opportunities for improvement that would otherwise remain hidden.
Supporting patient preferences consistently
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to patient communication. While some patients prefer the convenience of email or SMS, others may still rely on printed correspondence. The real value comes when those preferences can be followed consistently. Patients receive information in the format that works best for them, helping to create a more convenient and personalised experience, while healthcare teams retain visibility and control over communications
Kareen explained that patient participation groups helped highlight the importance of this at Ramsay Health Care UK. Patients were being asked whether they preferred communication by email or post, but the organisation needed a reliable way to ensure those preferences were reflected in everyday communications. This is where patient communication management becomes important. By bringing SMS, email and print communications together within a single process, healthcare organisations can support patient preferences while maintaining oversight of every interaction.
Balancing consistency with local needs
One concern that often emerges during communication projects is the fear that every process will need to become identical. Kareen made an important distinction between consistency and standardisation. At Ramsay Health Care UK, the objective was not to make every patient letter the same. The organisation reviewed and redesigned communication content, but it still needed to support the requirements of different consultants, services and hospitals.
That balance matters for large healthcare organisations. Consistency helps teams manage communications more effectively. It supports clearer templates, workflows and visibility across sites.
But it should not remove the local detail that teams need to care for patients and run services properly.
What do frontline teams need to trust the process?
One of the biggest concerns raised during the initiative was the fear of losing control. If a communication becomes automated, staff still need to know what happened next. They need confidence that information has been sent through the correct channel and that they can answer questions if a patient gets in touch.
Kareen described this as one of the biggest issues for end users. Teams were worried they would click a button, lose visibility and no longer feel part of the patient communication process. That concern is valid.
Good systems should not make communication feel invisible. They should show what was sent, when it was sent, which channel was used and provide proof of dispatch where needed. That visibility is what helps frontline teams trust the process.
The business case goes beyond postage
The cost of sending communications is only one part of the picture. Healthcare organisations also need to consider the time spent printing, preparing, managing and tracking communications. They need to think about administrative workload, manual handling, delayed communications, patient queries, reporting requirements and the ability to manage communications consistently across multiple sites.
Kareen described a process where letters were printed, put into envelopes, collected, franked and sent. In some cases, Ramsay Health Care UK found that patients received letters after the appointment date had passed. That example shows why the business case cannot only be about postage. It has to include the operational impact of a process that is slow, manual or difficult to track.
As organisations scale, they often look for better ways to manage templates, supporting content and communications consistently across locations. Having greater visibility and control through a Document library and an omni-channel communication platform can help support that consistency.
When viewed in isolation, a single communication may not look expensive. When viewed across an entire organisation, the process around that communication can carry far more cost and risk than it first appears.
What can healthcare leaders learn from Ramsay Health Care UK?
The strongest lesson from the fireside chat was not about technology. It was about understanding the process before trying to improve it. Map what actually happens. Assume less. Design around patient preference. Give frontline teams visibility. Use post, email and SMS intentionally.
Most importantly, recognise that communication problems are rarely caused by people. More often, they are the result of processes that have evolved over time and no longer reflect how healthcare teams need to work today. For leaders facing similar challenges, the starting point is not another system. It is clarity on the process, the people using it and the patients it needs to serve.
Where Postworks fits?
Postworks helps healthcare teams manage patient communications across post, email and SMS from one platform. With tools for templates, channel visibility and proof of dispatch where needed, organisations can create more consistent communication processes without adding more work for frontline teams.
A simpler way to send post
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