The Brief

In early 2023 I was part of a small team tasked with realising a highly innovative healthcare vision: A de-medicalised, community focused, physiotherapy event held outside of traditional healthcare venues that would allow patients to recieve their entire course of treatment (typically lasting months) in just one appointment. It was also intended to connect the service and patients with local community support networks, as well as help to reduce the long waits for appointments.

The Approach

Within the team I was directly responsible for 2 critical paths: Information Design (naming, patient communications, branding, & ‘patient passport’) and Patient Flow (expected journey mapping, venue layout & wayfinding, & on-the-day processes) alongside a supporting role in all other aspects of the planning & realisation.

In just 12 weeks our team conceptualised, developed, and hosted the first Community Appointment Day. The events received spectacular feedback from patients and staff, national & international attention, nationwide news coverage, and acclaim from NHS leaders & members of government. The model has since been replicated by numerous Physiotherapy services across the country and there are discussions in place for how this model can be adapted to serve other clinical specialisms across the NHS.

The first challenge was creating a name and writing appointment information that made clear to patients what to expect from the event. For the name, myself & the marketing lead established that it needed to ensure percieved value from patients, reference the local de-medicalised focus, and make clear that this was an event not a change to normal service provision, all whilst remaining simple and memorable. The ‘Community Appointment Day’ was the solution.

Myself & the operations leads planned an SMS based self-booking system to ensure booking the 250-300 patients wouldn’t overload adminstration capacity. To enable this the SMS was carefully crafted to direct patients to an explanatory webpage (www.sussexmskpartnershipcentral.co.uk/msk-cadh/) in which I pre-emptively answered likely FAQs (this was also converted to a printed letter for those without digital access). This was a resounding success with a 95-98% webpage access rate across the 2 pilot events.

A visual identity needed to be produced to ensure marketability and recognisability. I represented the branching patient journeys into a bold, minimal icon featuring overlayed coloured ‘limbs’ with each colour aligned to the different sections (the colour set was developed to be distinct for all types of colour blindness). This logo icon became the foundation for all further graphic products, helping to keep the imagery tightly aligned visually and time efficient to produce.

De-medicalisation (and focusing on patient defined needs) meant letting go of two tenets of traditional healthcare: the referral and the treatment letter. However, it was clear we would still need a way to capture each patients overall treatment journey (for our records) and ensure that each section had adequate information from the previous without needing the patient to repeat their story. This function was equated to the role of a passport and boarding card in air travel. As such, this document became known as the ‘Patient Passport’.

The passport was designed to have a high perceived aesthetic & functional value to encourage patients to keep it long after their appointment. A central double page spread was used to capture the patients treatment journey & support them in navigating the hall (this would then be scanned and attached to their medical record at ‘check-out’). Other pages within the booklet helped support their understanding of the event, prepare for the patient lead conversations, and provide them with answers to common post-treatment questions.