How easy is it to travel to medical appointments?

Each year, over 93 million trips are made to hospital appointments by patients in England.[1] Although people often have positive things to say about the care they receive, many find getting to hospital difficult in the first place, with journeys much harder than they should be.

The challenges people can face

One of the big challenges for people is covering the costs of getting to appointments, finding parking spaces at hospitals, accessing public transport, and physically getting to services without help.

Although there are services available to help people get to appointments and pay for transport – such as Patient Transport Services and the Healthcare Travel Costs Scheme – we’ve heard that there is not enough clear information shared with people about their options, and that they don’t always meet people’s needs.

Many have to go to enormous efforts to visit various healthcare settings, often on a regular basis. It’s not just that this is inconvenient for patients, but those with a disability, medical condition or frailty, simply cannot get to appointments without help. For people in rural areas, travel is made particularly difficult by the limited frequency and range of transport available.

We’ve also heard from people who’ve felt vulnerable and confused after leaving hospital without any help to get home. This is worse for those who can’t afford a private taxi but are discharged late at night or early in the morning when public transport services aren’t operating or are running less frequently.

We’ve raised this issue for the past few years in our work on hospital discharge processes and how a poorly handled discharge can lead to people having to return to hospital for further care which could have been avoided.

How can health and care professionals help?

People want clearer information from the start about the help they can get, and what it will look like. When they aren’t aware of the support they’re entitled to, they may end up missing appointments because they can’t afford to get there.

Health and social care professionals can help by:

• Supporting people to find out if they are eligible for non-emergency transport services
• Promoting how patients may be able to get a refund on their transport costs

The NHS and social care sector is going through a major period of change, with a clear aim to provide more services where people are – such as in their homes or in the community - rather than making people travel to access care. However, it’s still vital that these issues with patient transport are addressed to ensure everybody can get to the support they need, when they need it.