Transport support for outpatient appointments at Birmingham Children's Hospital

Many people tell Healthwatch Birmingham about the importance of having convenient ways of travelling to and from health and care services. Key issues are access to and cost of parking and a lack of money to travel to appointments. As part of the National Paediatric Accelerator Inequalities Agenda, Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust (BWC) established the free transport project in January 2022, which aims to support children and their families to attend outpatients’ appointments. This report is based on an analysis of the views of people who were offered transport cost support to attend outpatients’ appointments at Birmingham Children’s Hospital. Healthwatch designed a survey which was shared directly with people who were offered and/or used free transport support by BWC. Six hundred and ninety-eight people completed the survey between November 2022 and June 2023. After cleansing the data, a total of 519 responses were analysed.

The research shows that participants valued the travel support offered to attend their or their child’s appointment:

• Affordability and reliability of travel, availability of parking and cost of parking and travelling through Birmingham’s clean air zone are among the barriers people face when attending their appointments.  These barriers lead to considerable anxiety and stress, especially for those on low incomes, those struggling with the cost of living and those having to attend appointments frequently.
• For the majority of participants, travel support made the journey affordable and helped reduce stress and anxiety. Although a majority of the participants felt that the support on offer was varied and their transport needs were considered in the travel support that was offered, others did not agree.
• Some participants note that travel costs can be reduced by remote appointments or by having a mixture of appointment types. However only one participant changed to a remote appointment when offered.

Participants would like to see the following improvements:

• Ensure that the travel support offered can be used, as some participants spent more or missed appointments.
• Offer people choice of travel support.
• Timely delivery of travel support (e.g. train or bus tickets) or use of alternative delivery method (e.g. email).
• Offer appointments at different times and combine appointments.
• Continue and increase availability of travel support in the future.
• Clear information (e.g., about the scheme, instructions for using the parking ticket and directions).
• Provide contact information for enquiries.
• Let people who can benefit from the travel support know about the scheme.