ENGLAND — NHS England has introduced a plan requiring hospitals to provide patients with at least three weeks' notice of their next appointment. Hospitals have been ordered to implement the new notification standards as soon as possible.

The plan includes eight new patient experience standards for England's 205 NHS trusts. The standards apply to operations, diagnostic tests, and meetings with consultants. They also include requirements for notifying patients that their GP referral has been accepted.

Patients will be notified through the NHS app when a hospital specialist has accepted a GP referral and that they are on the waiting list. Patients who prefer letter or text message communication will receive updates through those channels. NHS England developed the plan by examining how businesses such as Amazon and John Lewis update customers on order arrivals.

Jim Mackey, NHS England chief executive, stated on Friday: "Almost everyone has a story in their family about how navigating the NHS has been like walking through treacle, including cases where patients aren't even sure if they've been referred, which is clearly unacceptable." He added: "If we want to keep improving patients' experiences and satisfaction with the NHS we have to fix the basics – and that starts with how we treat people even before they arrive for treatment." Mackey said: "Our communication with patients needs to be clear and easy to understand. We have to get away from making patients ask us multiple times to get the information they need and start delivering five-star customer service."

Research by the King's Fund found that almost one in four patients were notified about their appointment after the scheduled time had passed. Approximately 6 million people in England are waiting for about 7 million tests, operations, and appointments.

William Pett, interim director of policy and external affairs at Healthwatch England, said the standards were "a clear signal from NHS leaders that high-quality customer service matters as much to patients as the length of their wait." Pett said: "For too long, patients have told us about referral letters going missing, delayed appointment letters or feeling forgotten about altogether for months on end without news of when they will be seen." He added: "Needing medical care is stressful enough and through all the work to join up our data and invest in digital technology we are building a modern NHS fit for the future and able to make life much easier for patients to access the care they need."