A patient from Hebden Bridge contacted their Care Coordinator with concerns that they hadn’t received their bowel cancer screening kit, even though the patient’s spouse had received theirs. This Case Study follows a personalised care approach, with good communication with the patient to ensure the issue was actioned and resolved.
We follow the steps that the Care Coordinator took to ensure that the patient’s issue was followed-up and the resulting action met with the patient’s satisfaction.
An older patient from Hebden Bridge contacted me to say that they had not received their bowel cancer screening kit. They were concerned as their spouse had received theirs, had completed it and returned it, as advised.
I asked the patient if it was ok for me to request this on their behalf, which they agreed to. I then got in touch with the relevant bowel cancer screening team, requesting a replacement kit for the patient. Having done this, I informed the patient that I had made the request and asked if they didn’t mind confirming to me when the kit arrived, so that I knew my request had been actioned. The patient agreed.
The patient did contact me to let me know that the kit had indeed arrived and that they had already completed the screening kit and returned it to the screening service. The patient also thanked me for my help in getting this sorted.
Both the patient and their spouse were now up-to-date with the screening.
On reflection, as this patient contact arose out of my standard bowel cancer screening follow-ups with non-responders (from my cancer championing work), there’s an easy lesson to learn here. It’s just about going that extra mile to make contact with the service, on the patient’s behalf, rather than the patient having to do the chasing themselves.
This is something I now do in my initial SMS contact offer to request the kit rather than the patients having to ring the service. I believe this will encourage an increase in screening uptake.