Email reminders to patients may be introduced to cut down on the number of missed hospital appointments.

There is already a system in place which allows reminders to be sent by text, where a patient has given consent, but health chiefs are looking to broaden the options.

Health Minister David Ashford, responding to a Tynwald question from the Speaker of the House of Keys, Juan Watterson (Rushen), said: ’Appropriate analysis into the impact of contacting patients by text message needs to be conducted in order to understand the impact this has had on both cost - in terms of time and financial - and the hospital’s did not attend rates.’

He added: ’Following recent feedback relating to appointments missed due to patients not receiving mailed correspondence, the department has started to look into other available options to contact patients and email forms part of these early stage discussions.’

The Minister added: ’From initial investigations, the hospital patient administration system has the ability to retain a patient’s email address and so we will look into how emails could be used to communicate the details of patient appointments.’