TEXT message reminders sent to patients at Stafford Hospital have proved a success after dozens of appointments were rescheduled.

The service was launched to combat the problem of cancellations and missed appointments by sending a reminder to patients and asking if they are still able to attend.

More than 1,000 reminders have been sent, resulting in the rescheduling of more than 40 appointments across Stafford and Cannock Chase Hospitals.

Phil Platt, directorate manager for surgery, said: "We have a problem with cancellations on the day of the appointment, so this idea of text message reminders was one option to try to cut this down.

"Sometimes we book appointments six months in advance, so a reminder is sent out five days before the patients' appointment and, if they can't attend, they just text back 'no' and it's cancelled."

He added: "We started running service trials back in April and there were a few technical problems, but it's now been live since May 21."

Since then, 720 reminders have been sent resulting in 37 replies saying they could not attend, with 32 rescheduled.