The demand for evening ENT out-patient appointments

Increasing patient choice is a major theme of the NHS plan. For clinicians, this may mean offering NHS out-patient services at unfamiliar times, such as evenings or weekends. Published surveys of patients' views generally show high levels of satisfaction with appointments between 9 am and 5 pm, although there is a cohort of younger, employed patients who have expressed interest in evening clinics. This study attempted both to quantify the demand for evening ENT clinics and to target the patient group most likely to take up the offer of an evening appointment. When surveyed, approximately one-quarter of four hundred and fifty out-patients stated they would have preferred an evening appointment. However, when this group was targeted and formally offered a choice of time, only 1% of patients tried to change from daytime to evening. There is effectively no demand amongst NHS patients for ENT evening out-patient clinics.