‘Waste of resources’ warning over missed NHS appointments

Over three years, the number of appointments where patients did not turn up or cancelled on the day was more than 368,000.

The cost to the NHS in Leeds is estimated at around £21m last year alone and between 2010 and 2013, could amount to £62m.

In the city the “did not attend” (DNA) rate for hospital outpatient appointments was 12.2 per cent, higher than the national average of 7.3 per cent.

Hospital bosses said the problem was a “significant waste of NHS resources”.

According to figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, the number of DNAs increased from 120,826 in 2010 to 127,699 in 2012/13.

The greatest proportion of missed appointments was in critical care, where last year in nearly half of all outpatient appointments, patients did not turn up.

That was followed by haemophilia clinics, where more than a third of patients failed to attend.

Other Leeds hospitals departments where more than one in five appointments were missed last year included dental medicine, infectious diseases and the children’s specialties of immunology and allergy, dermatology, medicine and urology.

As the average cost of an outpatient appointment is £170, the cost of the missed dates could run into millions in Leeds.

According to data from the Health and Social Care Information Centre, the number of outpatient appointments in the city’s hospitals increased by four per cent last year.

There were 1,169,673 appointments across the five hospitals in 2012/13, an increase of 46,659 from the previous year,

The new figures about the impact of missed appointments were revealed less than two months after health bosses in the city warned the health and social care system could face a £250m shortfall within two years.

A major project is underway to redesign services to work out how to provide care with fewer resources, after the warning that the challenge caused by demands to cut costs and reduced funding was “unprecedented”.

A spokesman for Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust said: “When patients do not attend a booked appointment this is a significant waste of NHS resources and it is important to keep these occurrences to a minimum.

“These DNAs can be caused by any number of reasons.

“For example, if a patient changes their address and/or GP and does not notify the hospital, letters may be sent to the wrong address.

“The trust does have checking mechanisms – including following up mail which has been returned through the post as undeliverable – but we would urge patients to help us by notifying us of their new details as soon as possible,” he added.

A number of measures are being used to ensure addresses on file are correct and to remind patients about their appointment times.

They include newly-introduced self check-in kiosks for patients to use when they arrive for their hospital appointments.

These query whether the address and GP details are right and hospital heads hope this will help pick up errors or out-of-date information.

“DNAs also occur because the patient has not remembered their appointment date and time,” the spokesman added.

“The trust is currently testing voice and text message technologies to remind patients of their appointments seven days prior to actual appointment date.

“Early indications are that this is delivering a reduction in DNA rates.

“We do understand that circumstances can change after appointments are made but if patients contact us in good time once they know they cannot attend we can both re-book a new appointment and allocate their slot to another patient.”

The spokesman said that anyone who could not attend an appointment on the date requested should ring the number on their appointment letter to notify medical staff.