IMAGINE the scenario. You are running late for a meeting, you are flustered and hot, and suddenly the mobile phone bleeps you a message: it’s the hospital, reminding you about tomorrow’s ultrasound appointment that you had forgotten to write in your diary.

This is no pipe dream. Over the next six years the NHS will invest £2.3 billion in a national IT program which, it hopes, will provide a sophisticated infrastructure for the health service. Other plans include an electronic booking service, the transmission of prescriptions electronically from GP to pharmacist and the computerising of patients’ records.

“The program will streamline the way the NHS works by ensuring better communication between staff as well as making life easier for patients,” says Lizzy Bell, a spokeswoman from the Department of Health’s IT service, which is responsible for implementing the system.

According to the BMA’s Developing Patient Partnership (DPP), 12.6 million appointments are missed every year. “Research shows that 80 per cent of GP practices would welcome software to remind patients about appointments and allow them to cancel,” says Pam Prentice, the deputy director and campaigns manager at the DPP. The NHS will not be drawn on how much the IT program will save, but with GP appointments estimated to cost about £18 each, it is thought to be tens of millions of pounds.

After a successful trial in its sexual health clinic two years ago, Homerton University Hospital in London is trialling text-message reminders in four departments. The clinic found that, when texting was introduced, the number of patients who missed appointments was reduced from 40 per cent to 25 per cent.Jane Wheeler, the general manager at the hospital, says that she hopes to introduce the technology on a wider scale. “Combined with electronic patient-booking, it will help us to make substantial savings,” she says.

The changes will be phased in gradually and the NHS is reassuring patients that the program will not exclude older people who have a weaker grasp of the technology. “The electronic booking of appointments is the area where people will really notice the changes, but we are aware that not everyone is computer-literate. There will be terminals and software in the GP surgery and staff on hand to help people to navigate the system.”

Arjen Soetekouw, the commercial director for iPLATO, the mobile solutions company that ran the pilot scheme at the Homerton, says: “The average penetration for mobile phones in the UK is 80 per cent, and it is between 50 and 60 per cent in the 60 to 70-year-old age range. Lots of older people are given mobile phones by their children for emergencies. They may not understand the intricacies of the technology, but they need only click to read a message.”

A recent study by the Institute for Public Policy Research into new technology and healthcare highlights the potential behind mobile technology, but says that converting that into benefits on the ground may be difficult. “It remains to be seen whether the public and patients will embrace the use of mobile technology in health,” says Jamie Bend, a research fellow at the institute. “Some may be wary of the NHS using personal information on the mobile network. The important thing is to continue to run the old methods alongside the new, so as not to exclude sections of the population.”