In the UK, outpatient services are a major element of the health service for older people and large numbers are required to attend hospital-based outpatient clinics. However, it has been reported that outpatient clinics have fallen behind improvements in inpatient and primary care and they are seldom the focus of the patient-centred quality agenda that promotes personalised care. Significant proportions of older people fail to attend their appointments and there are few studies into the experience of older patients using outpatient services.
In this paper we report on a design-led service improvement project that involved older people using a medical outpatient service and its staff. The project was facilitated by an interdisciplinary team of practitioners and researchers from design, software engineering and healthcare. This team is developing new user-centred and participatory design methods that apply design thinking and practices to healthcare settings.