Assessing People's Hospital Outpatient Appointment Preferences in the United Kingdom

The sustainability of the United Kingdom's National Health Service's (NHS) is threatened immediately by Covid-19 and continually by an increasing prevalence of long-conditions that cannot be cured but can be maintained. Shifting traditional face-to-face outpatient appointments to remote video consultations may help the NHS continue to serve patients efficiently. While much research has examined healthcare providers' attitudes and beliefs about remote video consultations, less has attempted to understand how NHS service providers should invite patients to attend them. The present study examines how the framing of an invitation to attend a hospital outpatient appointment by video influences the proportion of people who agree to attend by video. It also explores some of the barriers and facilitators people may experience to attending appointments by video across diagnostic complexities and age groups. The results of this study should help hospitals better present patients with the option to attend video consultations where appropriate, and provide support to mitigate common barriers to people's willingness to give video consultations a go.