Sponsored by
Dentists campaign on missed patient sessions
NHS dentists in Sheffield are taking part in a campaign to raise awareness of the problems caused by missed appointments.
Each year, 54,000 appointments are missed at dental practices in the city, with the average practice having 600 missed appointments a year.
The campaign urges patients to "Keep it or cancel it – just don't forget it" in a bid to highlight the disruption caused when patients fail to attend. It will involve displaying posters in surgeries, giving patients reminder stickers and using a chart to show the number of missed appointments and time wasted at practices each month.
Richard Taylor, dentist at Taylors Dental Care on Sharrow Vale Road, said: "As a Sheffield dentist, my colleagues and I are seriously concerned about the impact that patient non-attendance has on our workload.
"If a patients fails to return for an hour appointment the dental team – dentist, nurse and receptionist – are totally redundant. If that's not bad enough, the whole team will have to work an extra hour another day to enable the practice to reach their targets."
In October, Taylors Dental Care had 37 missed appointments, which amounted to over 10 hours of the practice's time.
A spokesman for NHS Sheffield said dentists had found the number of missed appointments had been rising since April 2006, when a dental contract came in which made them unable to charge patients who missed appointments.
Email to a friend
Print this page- Three-inch blanket of snow heading our way today
- Alan Shearer in list of favourites for Leeds and England jobs: Latest odds
- Barnsley’s Keith Hill invokes Fawlty Towers over link with Leeds job
- McCormack feels United search can be narrowed down
- Redfearn throws down gauntlet as queue builds at Elland Road
- Rival chips in with £500,000 to restore the original Harry Ramsden’s
- Visit from Princess as Serbian culture celebrated
- SportsTalk: Leeds United’s manager search, Super League and Calcutta Cup
- Libraries aren’t like supermarkets, they are magical places where dreams begin
- Strategic review will lead to job losses at Yorkshire Bank
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Yorkshire
Saturday 11 February 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: -1 C to 1 C
Wind Speed: 9 mph
Wind direction: South east
Tomorrow
Light rain
Temperature: 1 C to 6 C
Wind Speed: 8 mph
Wind direction: North west
