June 22, 2026
CX Voices: Why the NHS Must Rethink How It Talks to Patients with Tom Boyle
For the first time in history, four generations share the same workforce. They are also sharing the same waiting rooms. Yet the NHS still defaults to the letter and the phone call. In the latest episode of CX Voices, Katie Kemshell sits down with Tom Boyle, Head of Telecoms at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals, to ask a pointed question: why is booking a hospital appointment harder than ordering a coffee?
Tom draws on fifteen years across NHS IT, from analytics to programme management to telecoms, to map the growing gulf between how patients want to communicate and how healthcare trusts currently allow them to. The comparison with retail and banking is one that patients are already making, and their expectations are shifting accordingly.
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The conversation moves beyond generational preference into something more personal. Tom speaks openly about his own diagnoses of ADHD and autism, and how that experience exposed the NHS’s communication channels as narrower than most trusts care to admit; not just for neurodiverse patients, but for anyone who doesn’t fit the assumed template of an English-speaking, 9-to-5 available phone user.
From live chat and real-time translation to shadow boards and digital comms strategy, Tom outlines where meaningful change is both possible and overdue.
Watch the full episode below:
