Accessible Results: enabling patients with diverse needs to access and understand their blood test results online

BACKGROUND NHS England has rolled out online access to test results for patients via the NHS App. Blood tests are the most common type of test requested in primary care. Viewing blood test results online may improve patient engagement and satisfaction. It could also lead to patient anxiety and could mean more patients contact their GP practices to discuss results. Making sure patients can understand their blood results online could therefore have an important impact on primary care workload. Patients need to know what to do next when they receive a blood test result; if this is not communicated well then patients could come to harm. Test result communication is therefore important for patient safety. It is important to make sure that all patients can understand their test result, and that groups such as older people with low digital literacy, minority ethnic groups, and people with disabilities, are not disadvantaged by the move to online blood test result communication. NHS England have acknowledged that the NHS App is not currently fully accessible.
AIMS OF THE RESEARCH The aim of this research is to develop tools and guidance to help patients with a wide range of needs to access and understand their online blood test results.
WHAT WE WILL DO We will use the 'person-based approach', which is an established method for engaging diverse users in developing health interventions. An advisory panel of patients and carers will be involved throughout the three stages of the research (called 'work packages' or WPs). For WP1 we will interview around 40 patients who are having blood tests done in primary care, and 20 primary care staff. We will include patients who have difficulties accessing their results due to disabilities, low digital literacy, or cultural barriers. We will ask them to talk through their test results with us ('think-aloud'). If they are not able to view their own results online, we will show them what online blood test results look like, and find out how this could be made more accessible for them. We will ask staff about their attitudes and experiences of the move to online test communication. WP2 will use a series of co-production workshops with patients, carers and healthcare professionals to develop template tools for online blood test result communication. WP3 will test these template tools with a wide range of people, using online surveys. We will use this feedback to develop a final version of the tools. We will share our tools and guidance with stakeholders including the NHS App team, using engagement activities throughout and a dissemination event. This is important to make sure they are used as widely as possible.
HOW MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC ARE INVOLVED Two public contributors have helped to design the project and will be involved in every stage of the research. We will also involve a wider group of public contributors in a PPI advisory panel. They will be involved in every phase of the research including co-production of the tools for test communication and will help us to understand the results from a patient's perspective.
BENEFITS FROM THIS WORK The tools and guidance we develop will be freely available. This work is important to help patients to take ownership of their data and health. Sharing blood test results in a way that is meaningful for patients could also help reduce patient anxiety, improve patient safety and could reduce the number of phone calls to GP practices to discuss these results.