Initially the system will be used for sending appointment confirmations and reminders, offer basic information on whether test results were normal, need repeating, to contact the surgery and so on where appropriate. It is therefore very important that we have your up to date mobile phone number so that we can send information only to you.

You are able to do this by:

• When you are next in the surgery, ask at reception; or
• Telephone the surgery and our reception staff will be happy to amend your details

If the surgery has a mobile phone number recorded for you we will automatically send appointment confirmations and reminders and other appropriate messages to you unless you let us know otherwise. Any information sent will be relevant to your healthcare, and will not be from any third-party companies.

If you do not wish us to send you information in this way, please let us know using one of the methods listed above.

If you have already let us know you do not wish us to send you SMS (text) messages then you do not need to let us know again.

It is hoped this system will greatly reduce the amount of missed appointments the practice currently has, and make more appointments available to those that require them.

Please note to protect patient confidentiality:

• No personal identifiable details will be included in any text message sent to a mobile phone.
• We cannot send text messages to you if you share a mobile phone with someone else.
• Some mobile phone networks may reject messages from the service - this is outside our control.
• Unfortunately you cannot choose which information you want to receive - you either choose to receive all text messages, or receive none.